Top 5 Advantages of OpenDNS And Why Should You Give It a Shoot?
Editor’s note: In this guest post by W.K. he explain what’s OpenDNS and the various benefits of using the DNS service instead of your default Internet Service Provider’s DNS.
Table of Contents
What is OpenDNS?
DNS stands for Domain Name System and just imagine it’s a huge phonebook that contains all websites IP. The job of the DNS is to translates every queries of the human-readable website addresses (www.google.com) to browser-readable IP (216.239.51.99), so that the internet browser knows where to fetch the data from.
OpenDNS is the leading DNS provider that offers free premium DNS service to everyone instead of the default ISP DNS. It’s a relatively reliable DNS and its users have reached 1% of the total world’s internet users. Meantime, the number is counting strong due to its reputable creditability.Reputation is based on the practical advantages delivered, and this applies to OpenDNS too. It’s suffice to say that the OpenDNS is one of the best, and even to the extent of cream of the crop! Therefore, let’s keep all the ado aside, and see what are the advantages offered by OpenDNS:
1. Increase Internet Connection Speed
Each time you want to visit a website, the address you typed at the browser will be sent to a DNS, then only the DNS will tell the browser where should it fetch the data from. This is quite obvious that the DNS’s processing speed plays an important part in your internet connection speed. Without shadow of doubt, a highly optimized server like OpenDNS will definitely improve the speed.
Furthermore, OpenDNS has 12 servers located strategically around the globe and it has cached millions of websites in its server. This cache technology will enable its user to get the instant fetch directly from the OpenDNS server rather than the far-located server of a particular website. You can experience this effect more prominently when you are browsing some famous website such as, Facebook, MSN, Yahoo, BCC and more.
2. Block Phishing Website
Phishing is a scam method to trick users to surrender their private information such as, banking information, credit card numbers, login username and password, to people who are up to no good.
The ‘phishers’ normally will set up a series of bogus websites which have the identical appearance of the legitimate website. If you’re not aware of this, and give your information as usual, then an unhappy consequences should be expected.
Fortunately, one of great effort that OpenDNS puts in is to fight against phishing. OpenDNS cooperates with one of the leading anti-phishing community Phishtank, and uses its data to prevent phishing sites from loading at your computer. Just for your information, Yahoo! Mail, Mozilla, Kaspersky, Mcafee are using the same data from Phishtank too.
3. Parental Control
The parents’ worry of the children might get access to inappropriate information is understandable, as Internet is really a huge hub of information and is a piece of cake to access. OpenDNS will take care of all the parent worries and provides one-stop solution for them to monitor their children activity on the internet, not only at individual computer, but the entire home network.
OpenDNS has 56 customizable categories of websites, in which the parents can set the filter precisely based on the category. The parent can either block the entire category or just an individual website. Or else, the easier way is just to set the filtering level to: low, medium, and high. After that, OpenDNS will take care everything.
Besides, OpenDNS also provides a thorough insight to monitor what kind of websites are being visited in the whole home network. This particularly useful as it allows the parent discover and block any inappropriate websites immediately.
4. Keep You Online All the Time
You might have encountered internet blackout caused by a lousy ISP DNS. This wouldn’t be a concern for OpenDNS at least for the history. Since service inception at 2006, OpenDNS has a remarkable record of zero downtime. As well, the bandwidth and latency wouldn’t be a factor to hold back your browsing experience while you’re protected by OpenDNS.
5. Autocorrect Typo Error
Although this has a little impact, but the autocorrect feature would still improve the overall experience. Once OpenDNS is enabled, any typo error at the address bar (www.fcebok.com) will be autocorrected (www.facebook.com) and you will be directed to the desired website too. It’s so much convenient!
Conclusion
It’s a fact that OpenDNS does offer many advantages, especially the phishing protection and parental control are the best. However, please do not expect too much from the speed improvement, unless your current connection is really a slow turtle.
The installation is a snap and it would only take you 10-15 minutes. Since it is free and so easy to set up, why not give it a shoot? After all, you have nothing to lose. Good luck and have fun!
Visit OpenDNS.com for more information.
Guest post: This article is written is by W.K, the founder of TeZeal.com and a technology enthusiast who love to crank his mind for technology knowledge.
If you would like to contribute too, please contact me.
i dun really know how much it helps, i tried it with my P1, it got slower than before. Then i move it back..
i mostly used google DNS instead of openDNS. So far good performance using Google DNS which is 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.8.4
http://awangshamsul.net
Sometimes there are legitimate reasons to access websites that are blocked by your local ISP. That’s a good reason to use OpenDNS.ÂÂ
You also forgot to mention it allows you to bypass some of the DNS blocks TM has placed on Unifi. OpenDNS is faster than Googles and definitely more ‘open’ , so I would definitely recommend it to anyone.
I am using Google’s OpenDNS.
IMHO “Increase Internet Connection Speed” is a myth. In my experience no considerable speed gain.