Here we can see, “opendns servers”
What Does OpenDNS Mean?
OpenDNS is the name of a website Name System (DNS) service and the corporate that gives that service. The OpenDNS service extends the DNS by incorporating features like content filtering and phishing protection. It’s also touted as faster, more reliable and have zero downtime due to its global network of DNS servers that ensures that, if one or two servers are down, the others can still carry the slack.
Why OpenDNS?
Running DNS servers isn’t a trivial thing–many configuration options must be understood and adequately found out. Additionally, speed and redundancy are critical issues. A cable TV company or a phone service might not have the in-house expertise to do this well. On the other hand, OpenDNS may be a specialist. Consider that the primary reason to use them.
Hopefully, because they’re specialists, their DNS servers will be more immune to attack by the bad guys.
Nothing is worse than a compromised DNS server.
I don’t say this lightly. Suppose your computer is lectured to a compromised DNS server. In that case, you’ll enter “www.citibank.com” (for example) into the address bar of your browser and not find yourself at Citibank’s internet site, but instead, be watching a phoney imitation internet site. Kiss your identity goodbye.
In addition to infrastructure, OpenDNS adds intelligence to the interpretation process that wasn’t a part of the first design of the DNS system. That intelligence, like preventing you from accessing known bad internet sites, is that the big point (if a free service can have a selling point). Next time, I’ll enter more detail on the varied sorts of protection offered by OpenDNS.
Let me end by remarking that OpenDNS protection applies to your Internet connection. Thus, any program that accesses computers by name will be protected, whether it’s an internet browser, e-mail program, instant-messaging program, FTP or whatever. I mention this for a few reasons.
First, malicious e-mail messages sometimes include links supported by an IP address (e.g., http://1.2.3.4) rather than the name of the pc. Since referencing a computer by IP address doesn’t involve DNS, you usually need to get on the lookout for this because the link is sure to be bad news.
Also, suppose you’ve got multiple ways of connecting to the web on your computer. In that case, you will have to form the required TCP/IP configuration changes for every connection. for instance, laptop users curious about OpenDNS should change the wired Ethernet, modem dial-up, and wireless Wi-Fi connection. An equivalent heads-up applies to anyone using one of the wireless data services from a phone company.
First, though, let’s consider what happens when DNS breaks. As noted previously, the DNS system translates computer names into IP addresses. So if it breaks, it’s going to seem that your Internet connection is broken when it’s fully functional. Of course, from your ISP’s perspective, everything are often working fine, all the lights on your modem and router* are often standard, but still, you cannot get to any internet sites without DNS life and well.
To see if DNS is the problem, attempt to access a couple of internet sites by their underlying IP address. Here are some to try:
chow.com http://216.239.116.39 google.com http://64.233.167.99 opendns status http://208.67.219.60
Speed and reliability
OpenDNS claims to be fast. I do not doubt this is often true, but this is often not reason enough to modify. For one, it’s going to or might not be faster than the DNS servers you now use. And albeit it’s faster, the speed boost might not be noticeable (it wasn’t to me). Still, it isn’t hard to seek out people that claim the web runs faster after switching to OpenDNS.
You can get a pity the speed at SiteUptime, which offers a free Quick make sure are often wont to compare the speed of OpenDNS with your current DNS servers. The OpenDNS DNS servers are 208.67.222.222 and 208.67.220.220. Its Getting Started page shows you ways to work out your current DNS servers for several operating systems.
Take these IP addresses to SiteUptime, chose the town closest to you within the menu, chose “DNS 53,” and enter an IP address within the “HostName or URL” box. once I tried this, the 2 OpenDNS servers responded in 0.010 and 0.009 seconds. In contrast, my ISP’s DNS servers responded in 0.025 and .027 seconds. Your mileage will vary.
Unlike speed, reliability could be a reason, in and of itself, to switch. OpenDNS operates servers in five physical locations, two on the East Coast of the U.S., two on the West Coast, and one in London. This is often likely a way more robust setup than that offered by your ISP. It also accounts, in part, for its speed claims–it responds to queries from the situation closest to you.
Phishing
Phishing protection is probably the foremost defensive computing reason to use OpenDNS. But, heck, anything that helps prevent ID theft may be a plus.
Of course, the newest versions of Firefox and Internet Explorer also include phishing protection. So there should be no conflict between the protection from your browser and OpenDNS.
Neither Mozilla nor Microsoft says where their phishing data (the list of known bad Websites) comes from. In typical corporate-speak, Microsoft says it comes from “several industry partners.” OpenDNS gets its list of phishing internet sites from PhishTank, a sister company it describes as “…a collaborative financial institution for data and knowledge about phishing on the web .” Anyone can report suspected phishing internet sites to PhishTank. and you need to love the name.
Typos
Another sort of intelligence added to the DNS name -> IP address translation involves typing mistakes. OpenDNS fixes a couple of common mistakes and sends you to the place you almost certainly wanted to travel to in the first place. For instance, typing www.javatester.og (missing r) will take you to javatester.org. So, too, will wwww.javatester.org (four leading w’s) take you to my JavaTester internet site.
Site blocking
If you check-in for an account at OpenDNS, then it can block internet sites for you. At home, this might be wont to keep children from playing online games while they’re alleged to be doing their homework. During a corporate setting, it is often wont to prevent access to Webmail as encouraging employees to use the company e-mail system. So OpenDNS is in a position to, for instance, block Yahoo e-mail (mail.yahoo.com) while still allowing access to the remainder of Yahoo.
The bad news here is that I can not see how this blocking are often enforced. A knowledgeable person can change the DNS servers employed by the OS.
If you’re handling children, though, the “adult” internet site blocking could be very handy, and it’s free. OpenDNS has partnered with the iGuard team at St. Bernard Software to supply an inventory of “adult” internet sites it claims are updated daily. How good is that this list? Test it for yourself at opendns.com/support/adult/. If it blocks an internet site by mistake, you’ll override it by employing a white-listing feature.
Setting it up
The instructions for enabling OpenDNS on its site are pretty good, but they’re click-here-type-this instructions and not defensively oriented.
One thing I might increase the instructions is to form a note of your current DNS servers so that, if need be, you’ll revert to them. Also, if you’ve got multiple computers on a LAN and need to kick the tires on OpenDNS before fully converting, then change just one computer to use the service.
Finally, you’ll think you’ve got converted a whole network to OpenDNS, but all the ducks might not be during a row. Usually, computers on a LAN are assigned their DNS servers at an equivalent time they’re assigned an IP address, employing a DHCP protocol. Thus, the quality thanks to converting all machines to OpenDNS is by modifying the DHCP server software. In non-techie terms, this suggests making a configuration change to the router. However, it’s possible for a computer always to use specific DNS servers, no matter DHCP. So after modifying the router, I suggest restarting each computer and verifying that it’s using OpenDNS.
User Questions:
1.Are OpenDNS servers free?
You can be a touch safer on the web using OpenDNS instead of the DNS servers from your ISP. In addition, OpenDNS may be a free online service that gives an additional layer of safety on the web.
2.Can you trust OpenDNS?
OpenDNS filtering service is more reliable and usually quicker than your ISP. The OpenDNS filtering service provides access to a site even when the DNS servers of this site are dead. OpenDNS filtering service is connected to PhishTank.com, an anti-phishing site.
3.Which DNS is most secure?
Some of the foremost trustworthy, high-performance DNS public resolvers and their IPv4 DNS addresses include:
- Cisco OpenDNS: 208.67. 222.222 and 208.67. 220.220;
- Cloudflare 1.1. 1.1: 1.1. 1.1 and 1.0. 0.1;
- Google Public DNS: 8.8. 8.8 and 8.8. 4.4; and.
- Quad9: 9.9. 9.9 and 149.112. 112.112.
4.What DNS for private home use?
5.PSA: OpenDNS randomly censors the web for anyone with a dynamic IP address
PSA: OpenDNS randomly censors the internet for anyone with a dynamic IP address from networking
