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About

Nebulo is a free, open-source, no-root, light-weight dns-over-https, dns-over-tls, and dns-over-http-over-quic client for Android with emphasis on privacy and security. Nebulo is fast, highly-customizable, ad-free, efficient on the battery, contains zero analytics / tracking. Goto the installation section to set up Nebulo on your Android device.

My mission

My mission is to provide access to dns-over-tls and dns-over-https as a tool against censorship and tracking. Many countries block controversial or government-critical websites using DNS which can possibly be circumvented using either of those protocols.

The second topic, tracking, is nearly as important as the topic of censorship. Many ISPs use their own DNS servers as a way of tracking their users. Using DoH/DoT puts an end to this by encrypting the vulnerable DNS queries.

How it works

Nebulo uses Android's VPN APIs to create a dummy (local) VPN which intercepts only DNS requests and encrypts them before sending it to a DNS resolver of your choice. This dummy (local) VPN is not a real VPN and does not encrypt any other traffic or hide your real IP. As only one VPN can be active per profile at any given time, you can decide between using Nebulo or a real VPN.

Non-VPN mode

Look for it in the FAQ section.

What this is based on

Nebulo is wholly an original piece of software: It doesn't use any other dependency for its core DNS capabilities. Inspect the build file to see what is used under the hood.

Incompatibilities, compatibilities, and possible limitations

• No other VPN can be active when Nebulo is running (at least when not running in Non-VPN mode mentioned above).
• Nebulo works fine with non-VPN firewalls in place (such as AFWall+), but changes in firewall profiles could break the VPN, requiring a restart of Nebulo.
• Other means of ad-blocking, like modifying the /etc/hosts file manually or using the AdAway app works alongside Nebulo just fine; though, the AdGuard app doesn't (that is, Nebulo does not receive any DNS queries when AdGuard's running).

Core features

• Encrypted DNS using dns-over-https, dns-over-tls, and dns-over-http-over-quic protocols.
• Customizable in-memory DNS cache with configurable cache-expiry.
• Preset list of privacy-respecting DNS servers.
• Add any DNS server.
• DNS speed test.
• DNS query logging.
• DNS blocklists.
  • Blocklist rules can be imported from remote URLs or on-device files (supports 4 different formats).
  • Blocks domains with unspecified IPs, 0.0.0.0 and ::0000.
  • Automagically protects from CNAME cloaking.
• Advanced settings:
  • Disable IPv4 / IPv6.
  • Allow captive portals.
  • Allow search domains on the current network.
  • ... and more.

FAQ

For a growing collection of frequenty asked questions, take a look here.

Help wanted

Translations are important to reach as broad of an audience as possible and for non-english speakers to be able to use the app to its full extent. Head over to the translation guide to see how you can help!

Installation

Nebulo is distributed over Google Play Store, Aurora Store, a custom F-Droid repo, and as a standalone .apk file.

Play Store

Download the latest version from Google Play Store.

Aurora Store

Search for Nebulo and download it from the Aurora Store, which is a G-Play mirror.

Aurora Droid

Aurora Droid is an alternative to the F-Droid app. Follow the F-Droid instructions below.

F-Droid

Follow these steps if you're using F-Droid:

1. Click to add Nebulo to your F-Droid.
   • Or, add it manually, fdroid.frostnerd.com with fingerprint 74BB580F263EC89E15C207298DEC861B5069517550FE0F1D852F16FA611D2D26.
   • Or, add it by scanning this QR-Code.
2. (Optional) For older versions of Nebulo, click to add this repositorty instead.
   • Or, add it manually, fdroidarchive.frostnerd.com with fingerprint 74BB580F263EC89E15C207298DEC861B5069517550FE0F1D852F16FA611D2D26.
3. Update your repositories (by pulling down to refresh F-Droid).
4. Search for Nebulo and download to install the app.

Binary

• Grab the latest .apk file from the Nebulo telegram group.
• Grab a signed build on GitLab.
  • The signed builds aren't always the latest or stable, but are merely signed development builds.

Community

Join the Nebulo community on Telegram to ask for help or connect with the developer. Head over to the announcements channel to get updates on upcoming releases and features.<br>

Or, participate in the XDA-Developers discussion thread.

Issues, and feature requests

Have feature ideas or stumbled upon bugs? Feel free to create issues on GitLab or on GitHub.

Developer contact

E-Mail: daniel.wolf@frostnerd.com

Telegram: @Ch4t4r

Skype: daniel38452

Credits

A list of some extraordinary people who contributed to this project:

• App icon and notification icon by RKBDI.
• Turkish translation by Kemal Oktay Aktoğan
• Russian translation by bruleto
• Dutch translation by Bas Koedijk
• Portuguese translation by Rafael W. Bohnenberger
• Indonesian translation by Gloeyisk
• Catalan translation by Daniel Alomar
• Spanish translation by Victor Bayas <br/>

Want to see your name here? Feel free to contribute!

License

This work is licensed under the GNU GPLv3 License. Different license-agreements can be made with the developer for parts of the app, if needed.

Copyright (C) 2021 Daniel Wolf

Cloning

Feel free to clone this repository. However, there are a few things to consider:

• Nebulo uses some of my own libraries. Those are FOSS as well, you can find the URLs in the build.gradle.
  • These libraries are distributed as pre-built binaries using an Nexus3 server. Public credentials are contained in the root build.gradle
  • Alternatively, replace the dependencies (implementation 'com.frostnerd.utilskt:....) with git sub-modules (implementation project(...)) after cloning the libraries.
• Nebulo uses icons from Font Awesome covered under their free license with attribution.