Holy fast connections! Check out OpenDNS, a free client side DNS caching service that does not require any kind of external software. Not only does OpenDNS speed up your internet connection, it has anti-phishing and domain name typo correction features, both of which are opt-out by ip address. With the typo correction, if a vaild website cannot be found, then you are sent to a search page. This is how OpenDNS will pay for it’s services, which are free to the end user. You can configure OpenDNS at the network or router level or by individual machine. Here’s how it works.
In the past I have had problems with Comcast’s name servers not resolving properly. When that happens I would go to various broadband forums and look for alternatives. Well that problem just went away.
OpenDNS was founded by my friend David Ulevitch, who has been telling me about this project ever since I met him last year at an early SuperHappyDevHouse event. David’s previous project is the highly successful EveryDNS, a free DNS hosting service. So, David knows his DNS and I can trust him to do the right thing with OpenDNS.
So, I had no idea how great OpenDNS would be until I actually had a chance to try it out today. David told me that they just launched when I saw him at last week’s Stirr event, but then I got sidetracked. Today Matt posted about it which reminded me to check it out. You should do the same when you get a chance.
UPDATE: Oh hey, if anyone tries out OpenDNS, let me know in the comments if you see a difference in your lookup speeds. Also, mention what ISP you are using and what city you are in, if you don’t mind. So far most people I’ve talked to are reporting an noticeable increase.
Here Are A Few Related Posts You Might Enjoy:
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- OpenDNS 2009 Sysadmin Appreciation Party
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This is a very geeky, US only solution.
What do you mean by faster? I can’t help but wonder if it is a pseubo effect. DNS lookup is measured in the milliseconds for most internet configurations I have experienced. If a particular host has a lousy DNS configuration that is something else.
Use Firefox or Flock typing in the address bar, and the implicit Google’s “I’m feeling lucky†will get you good results often with less typing than OpenDNS’s tyop correct. The phishing feature is novel but also coming in Firefox 2.0 .
Lloyd, by faster, I mean noticeably speeds up my connection. No pseudo effect here, it’s the real deal. And yes, my ISP, Comcast, has had DNS problems. What ISP are you testing from (I assume you have tested it before commenting here)? My guess is that it will not always make a difference.
According to their website, they plans for expansion beyond the US. Where are you seeing that it is a US only solution?
I wouldn’t look at this as Firefox/Flock competition, but another service to use in addition to those resources.
I’ve got SBC DSL, and after the configuration, have certainly noticed no decline in service. I figured that my Bloglines browsing would be a big DNS draw — since the images for 500 blog posts from 100 domains might take a while to resolve. I did test it on my ‘tech’ folder, but couldn’t really tell if it was any faster. Granted, my DSL is pretty slow to begin with, so I may not be noticing a few milliseconds here and there.
I got to know about OpenDNS from my friend who went to high school with Ulevitch. I tried it out and it works fantastically. It was most noticeable for me when loading a myspace page which I assume requires multiple HTTP gets.
When Comcast gave me trouble I simply added DNS entries of friends of mine who run servers. And then there are always the DNS entried for companies like SBC, should theirs not be fast enough.
As for caching, Windows has a DNS cache process that is turned on by default, so commonly used URLs first check the local machine’s DNS cache before going outside to the DNS server anyway. In short, I have had little problem with DNS, even when Comcast was having its problems.
This guy’s idea may be good, but I really don’t like using a DNS server I don’t trust. This is where malware comes into play. I remove DNS hijackers from customer computers every day, so I’m not so keen on somebody’s private DNS server, especially if they plan to serve ads.
Tried it.
It has made a very marginal difference probably around .002 Meg down improvement but hey everything helps.
thanks
It seemed like OpenDNS was slower for me. My ISP is Optimum Online (cable), and I live in Westchester County – New York.
Actually, the typo-correction and anti-phishing features are on an opt-out instead of opt-in basis. I have some technical comments on my blog entry: http://dready.org/blog/item/70/
Thanks for catching that. I’ve updated the post.
DP — Thanks for telling us. We’re definitely improving connectivity on the east coast this week and next. Should be a dramatic difference.
-david
I clearly meant to put “David Ulevitch” as my name.
Clearly low on caffeine. :-)
-david
I’d argue that the US-centric position put by Lloyd above doesn’t hold true. I’ve switched to using OpenDNS here in Australia after reading this post. Response time on a number of things seems hella fast.
I’m with one of the bigger 2nd-tier (and VERY geek-friendly) ISPs here who generally get it all right – Internode (www.internode.on.net). I’ve never had issues with their DNS, but I think OpenDNS may be somewhat quicker, even from here.
David, how about putting a server in Australia?
Hi Steve Collins,
Interesting. Response time relative to what? what do you enjoy about it?
The “probably around .002 Meg down improvement” comment indicates you might need to clarify what you mean by “faster”. OpenDNS won’t increase your internet bandwidth, but it will make web surfing *snappier*. It will resolve domain names into IP addresses faster than letting the requests propigate. MySpace is a particularly good test case: a lot of people hotlink images from websites all over (not to mention the ads) and there could be a few dozen domains to resolve.
DNS lookups are 6.5x faster for me.
Strange Scott, I did not see your comment previously.
I did give it a try. I did not find any difference, but I never found myself thinking “this DNS look up is slow”. I am sure people’s mileage will vary.
Today, it seems to be a US only solution.
I don’t see it as competition to browsers at all, but I don’t think it is currently a general or practical solution.
Though I find it intriguing, the technical details don’t really add up to me either. It is not my experience that most DNS servers are slow.
Lloyd,
There’s nothing about us that’s US-only (except the language on our website). Networking on the net is a funny thing where network topology and global geography don’t always intersect where you think they do.
For example, it’s likely that folks in Australia would have better connectivity to us in Palo Alto or LA than they would in Tokyo. Might not make sense, but google for “Southern Cross Cables” and you’ll start to figure it out.
Lots of areas in Africa are on Sat connections that backhaul into the US or Europe. We’re in the last steps of bringing up our POP in London which will pretty much give us the European coverage we need. A future site at AMS-IX or similar would just add redundancy (see recent RIPE presentation at NANOG on route overlap between LINX and AMS-IX locations for K-Root).
About DNS being slow, well, of course, ymmv. Then again, when your DNS is down, you’ll know. :-)
Thanks,
David
Hi David,
It is great if you are positioned to have a global service including local languages. Where your service would be consistently faster than a “local provider” would lead me to complain to the provider. I am sorry, DNS is not magic, and never been a perceived issue for me, particularly not a bottle neck.
I have experienced plenty of outages, but I guess I am lucky that it has never been isolated to DNS,
Lloyd
I set up my in-laws in British Columbia with OpenDNS, and we saw an immediate and very noticeable improvement in DNS resolution. Telus, their DSL ISP at their home and at their Vancouver office, apparently has quite slow+unreliable recursive DNS servers. I didn’t actually measure anything, but my in-laws are happy so I’m happy. :)
Graham
No worries here, Comcast is our provider and we went to OpenDNS the first day for our business connections (we host our sites here at the laughingsquid).
Nothing but BlueSky.
Trust? You “trust” Comcast? Man are you in for a suprise. They’re screwed, blued and tattooed by the tier 1 SysAdmins they use, I’ve been looking for a way out for years.
We’ll see how this pans out, so far so good.
Hylas
I am using an iMac with Charter Broadband. During peak hours my internet connection was incredibly slow, but with OpenDns, it runs about 5 times faster.
I agree with DP, I’m also Optimum Online in westchester, lookups seem slower.
Hi Nabeel,
Thanks for letting us know. If you’d email me a traceroute to the IPs you’re using that’d help me a lot.
I’m david [atatat] opendns [dotdotdot] com
I thought I was going nuts….Firefox would time out before the page started to load, even my emails would sometimes not send before Outlook express timed out. I’m with Telus in BC Canada. A friend told me about the problem dns servers ( he works for Telus as an ADSL service person.) Changed to Open DSN and now pages open almost immediately instead of 30 to 40 secs.
Works great
Thanks.
I have actually noticed a decrease in speed. I have Qwest in Phoenix, AZ. I don’t see any reason to run OpenDNS any longer. Firefox delivers all the same features that I would use. Keywords, typo correction, and phishing protection. I have no use for domain blocking at home.
I work for the Menlo Park City School district. We recently were experiencing very slow external DNS lookups. I stumbled across OpenDNS, added their DNS servers to the forwarders list of our DNS servers (removed all others), and BAM! External name resolution is almost as fast as internal name resolution. It has really brought some life back to our tiny T-1 line (which is soon to be upgraded)!
I have Comcast in Boston.
Old:
15,067
2,395
New:
29,813
2,713
Hi All,
Ive rolled out OpenDNS to a lot of my customers but today I had a very strange message that appeared stating no webpages I surfed to can be found.
the bottom message was a squid error but i dont run squid
Do opendns run squid?