OpenDNS – Faster, Safer Internet for Free

Today I wanted to mention a free service called OpenDNS. Before we get into what this service provides, I need to give you a brief introduction to DNS, or Domain Name System. Each domain, either on the internet or on a computer network, is assigned a unique name and address. For example, this web site’s unique (domain) name is joshuastarling.com and the address is 208.97.167.221 (also know has an IP address). Think of these as names and numbers you would find in a phone book.

Now when you access a website by its domain name, you are really accessing it by its IP address because that’s faster for computers. Yes, you can access the site by typing in the IP address, but which is easier? Remembering the name of site or a string of numbers? So imagine a DNS “phonebook” out there with the billions and billions of websites on the internet with an entry for site with the name and number. And trust me when I say that it is huge. And there are constant changes being made to the DNS “phonebook”.

Which introduces two problems: 1) A system that would not crash when a million computers ask the server for an IP address of Google and 2) A way to handle the constant stream of updates. The solution was to create a distributed system that works like this: There are a few key servers all over the world that contain master copies of the DNS “phonebook”. Other servers copy from those master server and other servers from those servers and so on. For most people, their Internet Service Provider (ISP) contains the first copy of the DNS “phonebook” their computer would access when pulling up a site. What happens when their ISP’s DNS “phonebook” contains an outdated or missing new entry? Then the ISP would look at the next tier server and if it wasn’t there it would continue to work up the line of servers until it found the entry (if it existed) and then copy (or cache) that entry all the way back down to the ISP.

The problem with this is that your ISP will typically only contain the most common

So what does all this have to do with OpenDNS? Well OpenDNS replaces your ISP’s DNS server with their own. So that means you have direct access to a larger, more up-to-date “phonebook”. In theory it speeds up your access time. But wait, there’s more! OpenDNS also provides these services for free:

• Automatically blocks known phishing sites.
• You can input your own sites to block from your home or business.
• Adult site blocking.
• Web address type correction. Type in google.cmo and you’ll get google.com.
• Track stats with a free account.
• And more for businesses.

How easy is it to hook up? In a nutshell, you just change the DNS server settings on your router. That’s it. It’s that easy. OpenDNS has setup directions on their site for a variety of routers. I highly recommend it!

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