Michael's Security Blog
 

NextDNS for Security and Privacy

Defensive
Privacy
Last modified: 02 January 2025

One of the most prevalent ways tracking and analytics happens is via various ad and tracking services. You can learn more about how exactly tracking on the web works here. These services are ran by Google, Meta, and a bunch of other for-profit companies that have managed to figure out how to monetize and capitalize on every click, interaction, and view you perform. You can see how affected you personally are with this neat tool by the EFF

Here's my score!

Screenshot of results showing a score of 17.51 bits of trackable information

I begin to feel perceived going through all this 😓.

In addition to the nauseating nature of ads and tracking on the internet, there are security ramifications to ads and tracking on the web. Towards the end of 2022, the FBI published a recommendation to use ad blockers for security reasons. This recommendation has since been taken down.

Additionally, it must be noted that DNS level control of a network allows controlling the types of content accessed including preventing devices from accessing known child sexual abuse material, compromised domains, known historic domains related to malware, and more. Large corporations primarily implement similar capabilities through web proxies instead of DNS level filtering. Don't mistake me, corporations do perform DNS level filtering, just not to the extent where it's a primary mechanism for defense. DNS is generally "managed" and "audited" in corporate environments rather than directly controlled.