OpenDNS

DNS. It’s that ultra-confusing thing that you use every single day, but you may or may not know it. Simply put, DNS is what helps the internet run. It’s the service that turns a domain name, such as google.com, into an IP address, such as 208.69.34.231. Whenever you visit Google, your DNS server(s) point you in the direction of the server you’re looking for.

Now, most of the time, DNS is pretty hidden. You won’t notice it, it won’t bother you, and it’s generally ignored by most people. However, due to the way it works, you can do some pretty nifty stuff with it. Almost always, your ISP will provide you with two or more DNS servers which you can use. They’re usually run by your ISP, and most of the time, they work fine. However, a lot of ISPs don’t have the most reliable DNS servers around (my ISP included!), and they can sometimes be slow during peak times, and even go down completely.

The good news is, you don’t have to use your ISP’s DNS servers. There are alternatives around, one of which is OpenDNS.

Now, OpenDNS has several useful features which make it well worth switching. First and foremost, it’s fast. You probably won’t notice it that much, but they say it is, so you might notice it if your ISP’s DNS servers are slow. However, that’s not the most useful feature. There are several useful features that, IMO, are well worth the switch:

Shortcuts: By far the most useful feature for me, are shortcuts. Simply put, you can setup OpenDNS to redirect short addresses such as “maps” to redirect to maps.google.co.uk. Once you’ve added a shortcut, all you have to do is type the shortcut into your address bar on Firefox/Chrome/Safari/IE/etc, and it’ll redirect you to the site you setup the shortcut to go to. It’s really very useful, especially with longer domains – for example, I have “cinema” setup to redirect me to the page for the cinema times at my local cinema. Useful!

OpenDNS - Shortcuts

Stats: Not really an “essential” feature, but it’s quite interesting to see what domains you request the most, when you surf the internets, and so on. It also shows you a list of your “most visited” domain names. According to mine, my most visited is Twitter, followed by Gmail (which I suspect is due to Twitterrific, Google Notifier, and my iPhone all checking for new tweets and mail ). The screenshot below shows my activity for yesterday (22nd March).

OpenDNS Stats - Top Domains

Content Filtering: OpenDNS offers five levels of filtering, ranging from “None” up to “High”. Generally, the most useful is “Minimal”, as it blocks phishing sites. However, if you have kids, you’ll probably want to set it to “Low” or “Moderate” – Low blocks phishing and adult sites, and Moderate extends that to “illegal activity”. You can also setup a custom filter list, blocking only certian sites. Plus, you can “always block” or “never block” a certian domain (eg, if you use OpenDNS on your work network, you can whitelist your company website).

OpenDNS - Content Filtering

Advanced Settings: Among the other useful features, there are a couple of other useful tweaks which make OpenDNS just a little bit better. This includes typo correction (for example, if you type in google.cmo, it’ll correct it to google.com), and a semi-useful “search proxy” (which you CAN turn off if you want to). I find the search proxy thing quite useful. It’s sortof like a Google search, as you can see (oh, and you can change the logo too, in case you get bored of the default one ):

OpenDNS - Search

To obtain the above features, however, you do have to “register” your network with OpenDNS, so they can tell it’s yours. This is easiest if you have a Static IP address, as your IP will always be the same, however they do provide an application you can run that keeps your IP updated with their site if you have a Dynamic IP. Once setup, however, you don’t need to do a thing, and you get an easy to use control panel if you do want to edit anything:

OpenDNS Dashboard

Overall, OpenDNS is a very useful service and I highly recommend you use it if you’re not already doing so.