Changelog

Every release of dnsetter, newest first, described by what it does rather than by what changed in the code.

2026.8.14 — beta, 28 August 2026

The bar at the top is just the app’s name now. It used to carry the name of the tab under it as well, which the app was already telling you twice: the bar at the bottom marks the tab you are on and writes it beside the icon, and every screen opens with the same word as its own heading. The line it took back goes to the screen you were reading.

Nothing else moved.

2026.8.13 — beta, 28 August 2026

Each VPN can have its own answer (Pro). Writing one of your own resolvers while a tunnel is up was already there, but it had to be the same one for every VPN. Now Tailscale can get a resolver that reaches its names while everything else simply has Private DNS turned off — the choice sits in the same menu as the rule, one line per resolver you keep.

Without Pro nothing changes: a VPN comes up, Private DNS goes off, and it comes back exactly as it was. That is what the app has always done for free and still does.

2026.8.12 — beta, 28 August 2026

A dark mode you can choose. Settings → Appearance: light, dark, or whatever the phone is doing. And if you would rather have your wallpaper’s colours than the app’s, that is there too — only the colours change, everything else stays as it is.

The permanent notification is out of the status bar. No icon up there, no sound, folded at the bottom of the shade. It cannot be removed entirely while dnsetter is watching — Android has no other way to let an app hear about a VPN — but this is as far out of the way as it goes.

The app also starts on white instead of flashing dark grey first, and there is more room at the edges of every screen.

2026.8.11 — beta, 28 August 2026

A new icon: two arrows passing each other, one going and one coming back, which is the whole of what dnsetter does. It is the same drawing everywhere the app appears — the launcher, the Quick Settings tile, the notification.

Everything reads a size larger. The text was a step smaller than the rest of your phone, and it felt like squinting.

Two things that were plainly wrong are fixed: a long line — what dnsetter last did, with the time — no longer breaks the layout, it sits under its label; and the bar at the bottom no longer crowds the gesture handle.

The Info tab speaks Italian. Parts of it were in English inside an Italian app: those words came from components shared with the other apps and had never been translated. Now they are, for all of them.

The colours no longer follow your wallpaper, and that is settled rather than switchable now: these apps have one look. F-Droid also shows screenshots of the app at last.

2026.8.10 — beta, 28 August 2026

dnsetter looks different. It is the first of these apps on a design of their own: paper and slate, a single cyan accent, one typeface doing the work, and thin rules where Android’s default look puts shadows. The bar at the top carries the app’s name and where you are; each screen says its own name in words you can read at a glance; and what the app is reporting — your Private DNS, what is in force on this network, what it last did — is set in a monospace face, so its answers no longer look like its questions.

Two screens changed shape as well as colour. The default rule now says what each choice does instead of offering two buttons. The per-app rule is a proper menu that fits beside the app’s name rather than squeezing it.

One thing is taken away and it is worth saying plainly: the colours no longer come from your wallpaper. If that is what you liked about it, the old behaviour still exists in the code and can come back as a setting — ask, and it will.

2026.8.9 — beta, 28 August 2026

Two things the last release said it did, it did not do. The automation hook — switching from Tasker and the like — went out without being registered, so nothing could reach it; and on F-Droid the tile and the widget asked for Pro in a build that has nothing to sell, because the app only worked out that it was free once you opened it. Both are fixed, and the app now checks at build time that no part of it can go missing that way again.

New in Pro:

A different rule on Wi-Fi than on mobile data. For the VPN you only want to suspend Private DNS for on one of them.
History. The last fifty switches, each with what caused it — a VPN, the tile, you — and a button that writes them to a file you keep.
A home screen widget. The current setting, switched in one tap. It shows you the setting whether or not you have Pro; only the tap is the paid part.

2026.8.8 — beta, 28 August 2026

The Quick Settings tile is now part of Pro. It was free in every build until this one, so if you were using it, this update takes it away unless you pay — said plainly, because a release note that called this an improvement would be lying. Everything the app is for stays free: the switching rule, the manual override, the status and its history.

New, and free:

dnsetter reads the setting back a second time a few seconds after writing it, and writes it again if your phone quietly put its own value back. Some manufacturer skins do exactly that. This is not a feature, it is the app keeping the promise it already made.
One saved resolver: keep the provider you use and apply it with a tap.

New, and Pro:

Several saved resolvers, with a menu to move between them.
A resolver of your own while a VPN is up, instead of turning Private DNS off — for a tunnel that carries a resolver you actually want.
Switching from an automation app — Tasker and anything else that can send a broadcast.

Also: the per-VPN rules are a menu instead of a row of buttons.

2026.8.7 — beta, 28 August 2026

If you installed an earlier beta, this is the one to have. The app turned Private DNS off when a VPN came up and then never put it back — so you were left resolving in the clear, which is the exact outcome it exists to prevent.

Your setting is restored again. The bug was in the part that notices a tunnel going away: it never noticed. Fixed, and now covered by a test that brings a real VPN up and down and reads the system setting back.
A notification when the switch happens. Changing your DNS is not something an app should do quietly. Silencing the notice does not stop the switching.
After an update the app starts watching again on its own. It used to say “armed” and watch nothing until you toggled the switch by hand.

If you had it armed and your Private DNS is currently off, set it back yourself once — from this version on, dnsetter does it for you.

2026.8.6 — beta, 28 August 2026

Appearance only, and the same appearance as the other apps here.

Every screen is drawn on the same blocks, with the same spacing and the same weights, as the rest of this family. Nothing moved and nothing was renamed; it simply looks like it was made by the same person, because from this version the look is defined in one place for all of them.
The bar at the bottom names the tab you are on.

2026.8.5 — beta, 27 August 2026

If you use Tailscale, the previous build could not see it. This one can.

Android hides an app from other apps unless something in it is exported, and a VPN service does not have to be — Tailscale’s is not. dnsetter was asking the system for VPN services, so it listed the apps that export theirs and missed the tunnel it was written about. It now asks differently, and Tailscale is in the rules list where it belongs.
Anything you had set is untouched: the rules are stored per app and nothing was lost, there was simply no row to set one on.
The changelog in the app shows the last five versions, folded, with the rest here.

2026.8.4 — beta, 27 August 2026

The setup without a computer, which is the one thing that stood between this app and being installable by anybody.

Shizuku. If you have it — it is a separate app, started once, and many people who root or tinker already do — dnsetter can grant itself the permission with a single tap and no shell at all. Afterwards it holds the permission on its own: Shizuku can be stopped, or uninstalled, and nothing changes.
The Setup tab now says exactly where you stand with it: not installed, installed but not running (it stops at every reboot), running but not allowed yet, or ready.
It has not been proved on a phone. The state it can be checked in on an emulator is “not installed”; whether pm grant goes through on your device is what this beta is asking.
The Info tab has the app’s own mark instead of an emoji, and names which build you are running beside the version — which is the answer to “why is there no purchase button in mine”.

2026.8.3 — beta, 27 August 2026

A small correction, and the tests that found it.

The button on the Support dnsetter card now says See the options. It said Open, and so does the card next to it — one screen with two buttons and one word between them.
The paywall, the supporters screen and the open source notices are now covered by tests that open them on a device, per build. They were the part of the app nothing checked.

2026.8.2 — beta, 27 August 2026

Still a beta, and for the same reason as the first one: the collision this app exists for has been seen on one phone with one tunnel.

dnsetter Pro, and the free version that stays free: the switching rule, the manual override, the Quick Settings tile and everything the Status tab shows are not for sale. What Pro adds today is a rule for a second VPN app and beyond.
The build you install from here has no paywall in it at all — every feature is open, including that one. What it asks instead is a donation, once a week, on a notification you can silence in two taps; silencing it takes nothing away, because nothing was held back.
A supporters list, in the app and on this site: whoever supported dnsetter can appear in it under any name, and take it back down in one tap.
Open source notices under Info, listed per build: the Play one links Google’s billing library, and this one contains none of it.
The app now asks for internet access, and uses it for one thing: the report screen and the messages screen. Nothing about your DNS, your VPN, your rules or your settings is sent anywhere, and nothing at all is sent unless you type it and press send. The first beta declared no internet permission; that is what changed, and why.

2026.8.1 — beta, 19 August 2026

The first build anyone else can install, on the F-Droid repository only.

Private DNS goes off when a VPN comes up, and your setting comes back exactly — hostname included — when the VPN goes away.
Change Private DNS by hand while the tunnel is up and dnsetter takes that as your new intent and stops switching until the VPN cycles.
A rule per VPN app, plus a default for everything else: a commercial VPN with its own public resolver can be left alone while a tunnel with names of its own is not.
A Quick Settings tile: Private DNS off from the shade, tap again and yours comes back.
Every change is read back before it is reported. Some manufacturer skins ignore the write, and dnsetter says so rather than claiming a switch it did not make.
No internet permission at all in this build.

Not a release. The premise is one first-hand observation on one device, and this build has not been run against any other tunnel. A stable version is what happens after it has.

Not built yet: Shizuku, a resolver other than off while the tunnel is up, and the widget.