Surf the Internet Faster with OpenDNS!

One Simple Tweak Can Speed Up Your Internet Experience, Filter Porn and Offensive Sites, AND protect you from the Conficker Worm!

If there is one thing I love, it is something awesome and free that speeds up my computer or makes me more productive. If I also get some cool, free features thrown in, well that makes it even better! That pretty much describes OpenDNS, which is why I use it exclusively as my DNS resolver.

"But Rich, what the heck is a DNS Resolver?" If you already know, skip a paragraph, but for those who don't...DNS is short for Domain Name Service. Briefly, computers speak in numbers, not in words or letters. When you type "www.gmail.com" into the address bar of your browser, your computer contacts a DNS Resolver, which returns the actual IP address of the computer that Gmail wants you to contact to login. The details of how that happens can get complicated, but what you need to know is, the faster your DNS Resolver returns that IP address, the sooner you are logging into Gmail, or whatever other site you are trying to get to.

Most of the time, you are using DNS servers that are run and managed by your Internet Service Provider (ISP). (If you are a home user on DHCP, they are assigned to you automatically when your computer or router requests an IP address. If you have a static IP, they will have given you the DNS servers to configure your router with at the same time you configured your IP address, subnet, and gateway information.) Often these servers are overloaded, resulting in less-than-stellar performance. OpenDNS, on the other hand, has numerous super-fast DNS servers located in data centers around the world. Your request is automatically handled by the one closest to you. OpenDNS answers billions (with a "b") of requests a day and their servers have a huge, huge cache. Therefore, OpenDNS servers can service your DNS request faster, and your web surfing will be faster as a result. Sweet!

But OpenDNS doesn't stop there. They also provide free content filtering! Are you a home user that wants to keep your teen-ager off the adult sites, or a business owner wanting to keep your employees focused on work-related sites? No problem. Once you sign up for a free account with OpenDNS, you can log in and configure what sites you want to allow and restrict from a list of 50 categories. OpenDNS Web content filtering uses the iGuard database from St. Bernard Software, one of the most trusted names in the industry, to power all categories relating to "Adult" content. And hand-in-hand with content filtering is automatic phishing protection. OpenDNS servers maintain a huge list of sites that suspected of phishing - that is trying to trick you out of your credit card numbers or other sensitive financial information.

To top it all off, using OpenDNS as your DNS resolver will protect you from the Conficker worm.  Even if you have been infected with it, by using OpenDNS, the worm will be blocked from "phoning home" and thereby being activated to wreak havoc on your machine!  If you are at all nervous about Conficker, you should switch to OpenDNS.

What's the catch? Naturally they can't offer such an awesome service with no catch whatsoever, but this one is easy to swallow. To quote the OpenDNS site:

People frequently ask us how we can offer such a fantastic service without charging a dime. OpenDNS makes money the same way Google and Yahoo do — by showing relevant ads when we show you search results. Our number one priority is to deliver the best possible user experience, which means you won't find any pop-ups, pop-unders, or anything like that around here.

For more information, see the OpenDNS Home Page or choose detailed information and easy tutorials that walk you through configuring your computer, router, or DNS server (it's easy!)

UPDATE: OpenDNS has launched FamilyShield to make it even easier to protect your family from adult content, phishing sites, and other dangerous Internet content.  It's like using OpenDNS with the content filtering preconfigured!  You can read more about Familyshield or read detailed instructions on how to configure it. If you know how to change your DNS servers already, just use the following DNS Servers to instantly protect your family: 208.67.222.123 and 208.67.220.123.

The videos below will introduce you to OpenDNS, show you how to set up an account, help you configure the dynamic client if necessary, and show you how to configure content filtering.