14 DAY TRIAL // Alphabet's Jigsaw tech incubator just released Intra, a new Android app compatible with Android 4.0 or later and designed to prevent DNS manipulation attacks used in web censoring or phishing and malware attacks.
DNS is short for Domain Name System, a naming system used by Internet-connected devices to translate website URLs into IP addresses. Your device needs to issue DNS queries to a DNS server to convert between the two.
However, DNS queries can be intercepted by third parties and modified to block access to websites and online services or to redirect you to potentially malicious web pages.
Here is where Intra comes in, encrypting your Android device's connection to the DNS server and thus preventing DNS manipulation attacks and providing you with unrestricted access to the entire Internet.
Using the Intra Android application will only allow you to circumvent censorship based on DNS manipulation and you could use a VPN which would help you unblock most if not all censored websites in other cases.
Intra can be used to fight against Internet censorship and malware campaigns using DNS manipulation to propagate
Intra can be a handy tool in countries where Internet censorship is a thing and from malware campaigns where DNS manipulation is used to redirect you to maliciously crafted websites designed to phishing or for propagating malware.
Using Intra is very easy: you install it, turn it on and then let it go about its business, encrypting all DNS queries originating from your Android device.
Intra will do its magic in the background, and you won't have to worry about Internet speeds delay either since, according to Jigsaw, your internet connection will not be slowed down.
Furthermore, Intra also allows you to pick your own custom DNS server or chose between the DNS servers provided by Google and Cloudfare.
You can get Intra from Google's Play Store on any device running Android 4.0 or later. When this article was published, Intra was already installed on 10,000+ Android devices.