Using OpenDNS??

hi there

at the moment i get my dns automatic from my isp, is they any advantage to using OpenDNS? , Many thanks

Some people use them to rule out any issues with their ISPs DNS servers, some find them more responsive.

Speed & security.

In reply to a post by Zadeks:

Speed & security.

hi there

out of interest why are OpenDNS more secure and faster than using my ISPs ? , many thanks

They respond slightly quicker than my ISP's DNS servers and Google DNS servers

OpenDNS may not be 'faster' in terms of the time taken for your lookup requests to reach them, and then reply (your ISP DNS servers are probably 'closer' in terms ping times etc) - however, the OpenDNS infrastructure has been designed so you will always be querying the nearest OpenDNS server(s), and more over, they use multiple load balanced DNS servers, meaning the chances of the answers to your lookup requests being dropped or delayed is extremely remote (they just keep adding more capacity as the demand increases). The result of this is - very few (if any) outages, and a consistently stable (low standard deviation) lookup times to requests.

In terms of security, if you are on a static IP address, you can register an account, map your IP to it, and then configure their DNS servers to filter replies to your requests, to block malware and other sites. The downside of this is that some see this as a bit of a monopoly, as they have the power to block some sites that are perfectly OK (I've read reports of this happening). So people have mixed views on their service for this reason.

I use them, and I have no problem using them. They just work. In their most recent news letter, they quoted (as they always do) the number of DNS requests they are processing per day. That figure worked out at half a million DNS requests per second (pretty impressive, right?). This will keep going up. There's no reason for a ceiling to be reached here. Because of this, there is no doubt that compared to most ISP DNS servers, they are truly in a league of their own when it comes to speed, platform design and security.

Edited by deleted (Wed 09-Nov-11 23:32:42)

I use OpenDNS and find it more reliable than my ISP's DNS. But I do wonder how they can offer this free service? Are they altruistic?

Very good point. Not sure of the business model they have. I do notice they slam some adverts to you when you typo a web address, but who ever clicks on those? How is any money made from that?

Their other source of income is probably from paid accounts - for example, the free account option has some basic filter and reporting options - they probably offer you a whole load more goodies if you start paying, so I guess that's another source of income.

But does all this cover running costs? No idea. Something must be paying for it all, and as requests per second go up, that cost is only going to increase!

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So they log your usage, target you with adds (as do many others)

While not many may click on add's. I guess a few will and with the number of users it will mount up.

In reply to a post by JohnR:

We may use third-party cookies as part of remarketing activities we conduct with Google and/or other third-party vendors, to help provide you with relevant promotional offers as you use the Internet. As part of these remarketing activities, these third-party cookies may record your visits to this Web site and web sites visited prior to using this Web site. Such cookies can then be used to serve advertisements to you on other web sites

So they log your usage, target you with adds (as do many others)

While not many may click on add's. I guess a few will and with the number of users it will mount up.

It's possible to read that as the cookies may be directly accessible by the other parties. They wouldn't need to log anything.