OpenDNS Upgrades Network, Rising To The Google Challenge
manu-j.com
manu-j.com
If you're setting up OpenDNS, you should really be setting up an account with them too.
And this sounds like a good plan to you?
And OpenDNS isn't the default here anyways. You have to make a conscious choice to use them. Unfortunately, there's a disconnect between creating an account on their site and setting up to use their resolvers.
Perhaps this would be resolved if they first redirected you to create an account when visiting the first website you go to? Much like a wifi hotspot with a login. At least then you would be prompted to create that account.
However, "Break the Internet" should not be an available option, especially not the default option.
Malware avoidance, spelling correction, etc. are all good things. However, DNS is not the right way to achieve these things.
Also, these things assume that you're only using the web. Let's say I open my IRC client, and mistype the domain of the IRC server. Guess what? Now I'm trying to connect to OpenDNS ad server as if it were an IRC server instead of getting an error instantly.
Don't screw around with DNS. Resolve the names, and that's it. If you need extra functionality, put it somewhere else, like the browser or the search engine or the OS.
This has been the default behavior of every ISP I've had in the past 4 years. The one that allowed you to "opt-out" merely forwarded you to MSN Search instead. You say "don't screw around with DNS", but it is already as much a mess as every other part of the internet, and it will never be pristine again as along as there is a buck to be made.
this is exactly why the google DNS is something worth cheering over.
However, if you're like me and you enjoy the features that OpenDNS provides, then the choice to switch is easily made. If I would like to use OpenDNS for it's speed and still retain NXDOMAIN support, there is the option for me to do so (And admittedly, it's in an account section that should be more forward-facing). But I understand what the defaults are because I'm making the active choice. Don't insinuate that they hide these things away. NXDOMAINs are something that only advanced users would care about anyways, and you have to have a certain level of geekness to want to switch DNS resolvers anyways. So, give your fellow smarty-pants some credit!
Google can justify the expense of their DNS service w/ NXDomain's because it will speed up all of their web properties and generate more search revenue.
And don't think I'm going to start tracking what you look at if you create an account, stats are off by default.
I really don't care about how much porn you look at online. :-)
I mean, they have to hijack something to identify my cookies, right?
We're losing a lot of that control, but that loss of freedom isn't coming from me. I'd like to work to maintain it.
I think some day when there is a massive privacy violation at Google we will understand what the costs of Google really are.
Until then, I don't think it's unreasonable to cut this guy some slack. His business is now directly in the crosshairs of the most powerful company in the world. I wish him good luck.
When I write software, thanks to people like you now I can't depend on DNS to return accurate results. Another example of this is web browsers, which cache DNS beyond the TTL in order to provide a slightly faster experience. In the process, they break GSLB, which can no longer operate optimally since it can't rely on users re-querying DNS after the TTL of their answer expires.
Most folks are quite happy with your default experience, but that's because they're ignorant of the ramifications.
Lately the browser war has made me very excited (love the Chrome for Mac beta, can't wait for extensions). Hope this DNS war will go on for a while so that further improvements and innovations can be squeezed out.
India: Are you planning to deploy at NIXI or at many of the larger ISP's, in which case, it's not very efficient.
Africa: What countries other than South Africa, Egypt are you looking at?
Asia: Are you looking at deploying at the Equinix in HK, Singapore; how about Japan/Korea?
My email is in my profile, if you want to reply offline.
I'm honestly not trolling. This is a legitimate question.
Oddly enough, when I use Comcast's DNS servers the speed at which Modern Warfare 2 connects to online games is drastically slowed compared to OpenDNS. I'm not quite sure why, but it's the most noticeable effect I've had switching over to OpenDNS.
However, since changing to Google DNS when my ISP DNS was down a couple of weeks ago, I've not actually bothered to change back.
(edit: having seen davidu's comment on this page, I may try OpenDNS again, sans ads.)
Here in the US I configured my home router to use the google 8.8.x.x servers since my cable operator was hijacking the DNS queries, that is, until I send them an email kindly asking to remove me from their redirecting service.
I assume that, sometime in the future, ISPs outside the US will start doing the same redirection, unless there's some law that prohibits them of doing so.