OpenDNS: A true gem in DNS speed, reliability, and security.
OpenDNS isn’t a new service, in fact the startup launched back in 2006 and it’s had plenty of coverage from all of the big tech sites including Slashdot, TechCrunch, and Wired News but I guess I hadn’t paid attention to what the service was all about until just recently. OpenDNS is a free service that gives users an alternative to their ISP’s DNS services by offering servers with an unusually large cache and an aggregated list of sites deemed guilty of phishing and adware that it in the end can make our web surfing faster and safer. The service is as simple to set up as changing the DNS settings in your router or PC to the one’s OpenDNS provides.
If you register a (free) account with OpenDNS you get a ton of other options such as customizable content filtering, site blocking, statistics, shortcuts, and typo correction. Now my nightmares of accidentally opening up my collection of online gambling bookmarks in front of my boss can be a thing of the past!
The bulletproof uptime and speed of OpenDNS is what really caught my attention. Up until now I’ve been using DNS IP’s that belong to Level3, a leading telecommunications provider. While Level3’s servers are reliable, they aren’t technically “open” for public use and you don’t get the control and features that an actual DNS service like OpenDNS has to offer. The speed of OpenDNS comes from the extreme lookup caching they have set up. You would think that DNS caching would be a nightmare for an admin/developer type like myself but OpenDNS has thought of this with its ability to easily manually refresh a cache of any particular domain through the online interface.
The bottom line is OpenDNS offers features you wouldn’t imagine possible from a typical DNS server and for people like myself who have reliability problems with their defaulto ISP provided servers OpenDNS acts as a perfect alterative.
Side Note – Paul Stamatiou recently wrote a short entry about the community and some of the new features behind OpenDNS, check it out.
Posted in: Guides, Internet, Reviews, Security, Technology
February 24th, 2008 at 1:22 pm
Thanks for the great write Mark. We’ve got a lot of features already, as you note, and a whole slew of other unimaginable things in the pipeline.
February 24th, 2008 at 3:15 pm
We actually use OpenDNS at work. The features they have are pretty handy.
February 24th, 2008 at 7:40 pm
Thanks much for dropping by David!
I love the animation on your website.
February 25th, 2008 at 9:32 pm
Coincidently I was looking forward to speeding things up in my LAN. With the new server box coming along and this, I should be able to set up a wicked LAN DNS cache super fast upstream config that should save a couple of precious milliseconds.
Nice article, nice find.