OpenDNS

[jtwhite]

Do you use a service such as OpenDNS? Do you think it actually helps make the Internet faster?

In my experience I get a lot of errors and dropped connections, forcing me to use Charter Communication's horrible DNS.

 

[kestrel1]

Do you use a service such as OpenDNS? Do you think it actually helps make the Internet faster?

In my experience I get a lot of errors and dropped connections, forcing me to use Charter Communication's horrible DNS.

I use OpenDNS & have had no problems using it. It does seem to improve the speed of my 1mb broadband. I would recommend it.

 

[Smith6612]

I run a DNS cache server from home on my Linux network router. It's great having it at home as it's not on sometimes overloaded DNS servers sitting out in NYC, that plus I'm getting sub millisecond responses if the router has it cached (just checked a site I visit frequently via my router's terminal. Look up time was 7.2ms on my Pentium III box Linux router from cache, while DNS look up time to the closest server based on how my traffic is routed took roughly 25ms of time to look up). For the most part, switching DNS server won't show much performance other than the initial visit to a site (where a PC would cache the result itself for a little while) unless the DNS servers are REALLY slow, as in 3-6 second look up times which I have seen way too often on residential ISP servers. The only way I can really say switching DNS might show some performance boosts is with Content Distribution Networks, where the DNS server may send you to a less busy and closer content server, but for the most part the CDN would determine where to take you based on GeoIP anyways.

 

[jtwhite]

I have definitely experienced 3-4 second look up times with my ISP's DNS servers. OpenDNS is greatly faster but it always has connection issues.

 

[Smith6612]

I have definitely experienced 3-4 second look up times with my ISP's DNS servers. OpenDNS is greatly faster but it always has connection issues.

That's no surprise considering Charter is bankrupted at the moment and so many people use ISP DNS (Is it still 2001, the day and age where 10 minute video was sent via e-mail? -.- ). You should consider running a local cache somewhere on your PC or network if other DNS servers do not work for you. I suggest trying out 4.2.2.1 and 4.2.2.2 as your DNS servers to see how those work if OpenDNS is in fact still giving you problems. They're CDN based DNS servers ran formerly by Bell Atlantic/Level3 and now operated by Verizon Business I believe (or they could still be Level3 servers) but they do a great job from what I've heard.

 

[jtwhite]

I just changed those to be my DNS servers. Let's hope they do better

 

[crownabhisek]

I din't find any significant delay. I mean its rather faster than my ISP provided DNS

 

[Brandon]

I have and always will use 4.2.2.2 and 4.2.2.3 as my DNS servers; never had a problem yet why start now.

 

[galaxyAbstractor]

openDNS is full of ads, and you can't use shortcut addresses (you for youtube.com etc). Also, swedish URLs containing å ä and ö wont work.

 

[kestrel1]

I have and always will use 4.2.2.2 and 4.2.2.3 as my DNS servers; never had a problem yet why start now.

I will try these out later & see how they perform. If they are better than OpenDNS I will keep them.
Cheers

 

[steronius]

I've set my router to use OpenDNS for about two weeks now. I have had some "Waiting for..." at the bottom of firefox a few times, but then again i had used the link below to config also, so was not sure which is the issue. However i'd say for the most part, it does not seem to give me problems.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WO9QrQ9TWj4&annotation_id=annotation_703883&feature=iv
http://t3chh3lp.com/blog/2009/8/2/how-to-make-firefox-faster-with-tweaks-and-optimization.html

edit:
i'm sure there are tons of public DNS servers, but here are a few more:
http://www.dnsadvantage.com/
4.2.2.1 through 4.2.2.6

after pinging the referenced DNS servers, i found in my case that opendns was fastest, but at milliseconds, who cares.

 

[DragonMaster]

My ISP's DNS is as fast if not faster than OpenDNS, but it's not upgraded as often. I got dead links with my ISP's DNS server a few times that worked properly with OpenDNS. The opposite was true as well.

Also, OpenDNS's search suggestion full-of-ads page gets annoying when you reach a dead page.

Public DNS' are a good thing, but they're slow sometimes.