How to Enable ESNI

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ESNI (Encrypted Server Name Indication) is a proposed standard that encrypts the Server Name Indication (SNI), which is how your browser tells the web server which website it wants to access. By default, the SNI is not encrypted, which means that anybody on the same network as you or your Internet Service Provider can see which websites you are connecting to. Enabling ESNI helps protect your privacy by making it harder for others to see what website you are connecting to. This wikiHow will tell you how to enable ESNI.

Keep in mind that Google Chrome does not support ESNI.

Steps

Download Mozilla Firefox

Currently, Firefox is the only mainstream browser that supports ESNI, so you will have to download and use Firefox in order to use ESNI.

  • To download Firefox, navigate to https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/new/, and then click on . Then, open the installer and follow the on-screen instructions to install Firefox.
  • Once ESNI becomes and official standard, other browsers like Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge will probably add support for it as well.

Type about:config into the URL bar.

This will allow you to access the advanced configuration settings.

Click Accept the Risk and Continue.

Type esni into the search bar.

The search bar is near the top of the page.

Double-click the option that says network.security.esni.enabled.

Then, close Firefox, and then reopen it. This will enable ESNI.

Tips

  • If you want to enable ESNI on your Android phone, then you will have to install the Mozilla Firefox Nightly browser on your phone, as the regular version of Mozilla Firefox does not support about:config on mobile phones.Keep in mind that Firefox Nightly is an experimental browser, and it will probably have bugs. Do not use it as your main browser.
  • You can test to see if enabling ESNI worked by accessing Cloudflare’s ESNI checker and clicking on Check My Browser.

Warnings

  • ESNI is only supported on sites that use Cloudflare and on a few other sites. While Cloudflare does have over 60,000 websites that use it, there are still millions of other sites that do not currently support ESNI, so your protection will be limited.
  • You cannot enable ESNI on Firefox for iOS.
  • ESNI is still only a proposed standard in Beta, so it is possible, although unlikely, that it might have bugs in it that cause some strange issues.

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