Dear subscriber,
We are pleased to announce that we just completed a Major Release for November 2021. With this release, DeCloudUs DNS Custom Server extended the ability to "deApple" and "deMicrosoft" to Premium Plus subscribers.
- Added "deApple" option to Custom Server: this option blocks nearly 6,000 apex/root domains (not just subdomains) registered to Apple. Over the past few months, we received many requests from subscribers to add a blocklist for Apple as many users with Apple devices are increasingly uneasy about what Apple does with the data it collects. While it was always possible to block popular Apple domains via Custom Blocklist, that Premium Plus subscribers have access to, many users were looking to DeCloudUs to make it a one-click setting, which makes sense since Apple is not just a major hardware and OS company but also embeds its cloud services in every device it sells. It is certainly expected for Apple users to allow specific hosts/subdomains needed for important functions such as device software updates; to make that task easier, we provided a link that includes a list of specific subdomains for popular Apple services, so that a user can evaluate what to allow.
- Added "deMicrosoft" option to Custom Server: this option blocks over 30,000 apex/root domains (not just subdomains) registered to Microsoft. Microsoft has different lines of business that are fairly similar to Google: Windows is a popular OS on millions of devices that has increasingly been including more embedded Microsoft cloud services and Microsoft does run an online Ads business, so it is reasonable to expect that they collect user data for better ad performance. Since Microsoft owns tens of thousands of root domains, we decided to add a setting that blocks all of these domains with a simple setting. There are some necessary services that some users may want to allow (such as Windows OS updates); to make that task easier, we provide links that list the different subdomains Microsoft uses to deliver certain popular services so that a user can evaluate what to allow.
To use these settings, simply visit your Custom DNS page and select these options to enable them. Like the "deGoogle" option, these new settings are very powerful in completely blocking Apple and Microsoft. DeCloudUs aims to provide you with options and tools that you can use however you see fit, based on your privacy goals. We would strongly recommend you to learn about what services/subdomains you need to allow for your devices, via the links we provide for reference under these settings, if you opt to enable them.
To make it easier to see Major Releases summaries, we added a section in the Status page that you can access anytime: https://decloudus.com/status.html
As always, if there are any questions, issues, or feedback, please feel free to reply back.
Best regards,
DeCloudUs
