Originally Posted by Impz2002 (Post 34464860)

As a few of you know i am a real supporter of OpenDNS as it has really improved my browsing experience.

If you are unsure of how it works and how it can improve your connection i will try to explain.

DNS stands for Domain Name System. When you type an address into your browser it sends a request to the DNS server to change the nice easy www.example.com address into its IP address. so when you type in www.cableforum.co.uk it tells your computer the ip address is 87.106.129.133. Virgin media has its own DNS servers but they are obviously very busy receiving many thousands of requests at one time. Open DNS speeds up your request by bypassing Virgins servers and using their own. This is a free service and you don't need to install any additional software.

My experience with open DNS has been very successful. It has improved the speed of my web browsing alot !

If you want to give it a try then hop on over to http://www.opendns.com

I would also like some feedback from anyone who has tried the service and their thoughts on it.

Hope this is of help to anyone experiencing slow browsing on their VM Broadband.

Impz :soapbox:

Originally Posted by georgepomone (Post 34464877)

Hi All,
I've used Open since they started. Even then there was a massive improvement and it's got even better since then. I only ever remember one problem and that was cleared within minutes.
George.

Originally Posted by dev (Post 34464941)

run my own dns so no need to use it :p:

Originally Posted by dev (Post 34464941)

run my own dns so no need to use it :p:

not a fan of services interfering with dns requests either

Originally Posted by jcw00 (Post 34464955)

So if YOUR DNS server doesn't have an address in it's database, where does it go to obtain the IP number? I guess you must have a forwarding DNS server in your list.

Originally Posted by TraxData (Post 34464964)

Ditto, though the times i have used Open DNS it was actually -slower- than VM's own dns...

Originally Posted by Paul M (Post 34465102)

Any "speed improvements" are mostly in your mind. Your PC only needs to look up the ip address of a site once, it then caches it locally. It won't make any difference to how fast a site loads other then the slight delay when you first visit it.

Originally Posted by TehTech (Post 34465123)

Dont make any difference really, this page still took 11.326seconds to load, so much for downloading a music track in 2 seconds, thats false advertising if ever I saw it!!!

Originally Posted by looselipsuk (Post 34465173)

Might be a silly question.
I have a wireless router. Should I change the settings on PC and wireless router, or just the wireless router?

Originally Posted by dev (Post 34465146)

dns has nothing to do with download speeds, as said previously it only matters with resolving the domain name and thats usually only done once per site so won't help in speeding up browing as once you visit the site, you have the IP cached locally

Originally Posted by Losttheplot (Post 34465180)

If you change the router to use Open DNS servers then do an IPconfig /release then ipconfig /renew (in a dos window on your PC) your PC will then be using Open DNS. Your PC is told by the router what DNS to use unless you specify addresses on the PC.

Originally Posted by looselipsuk (Post 34465223)

Thank you for that. Will try it out later.

Originally Posted by dev (Post 34465146)

dns has nothing to do with download speeds, as said previously it only matters with resolving the domain name and thats usually only done once per site so won't help in speeding up browing as once you visit the site, you have the IP cached locally

Originally Posted by Stuart C (Post 34465290)

I personally don't think faster DNS will make much difference. While it will make some difference (particularly if a site uses content from a lot of different servers), each lookup only takes a few milliseconds, so you would be hard pushed to see much improvement.

Originally Posted by Impz2002 (Post 34465423)

for some yes it is. It all depends on how much load your local DNS servers are under at peak times.

Like i said it dosnt make a difference for all but i suffer from terrible load times using Virgins DNS. Alot of pages just timed out as virgins servers would not resolve the address. You tried it at least :)

Impz

Originally Posted by Losttheplot (Post 34465570)

What are the risks? You are identifiable only by your IP. You can't be spammed. So they know that IP's browsing habits, so what? What on earth do you think they can do to actually cause any issues to you with it?

Originally Posted by Losttheplot (Post 34465570)

What are the risks? You are identifiable only by your IP. You can't be spammed. So they know that IP's browsing habits, so what? What on earth do you think they can do to actually cause any issues to you with it?

Originally Posted by lucevans (Post 34465614)

Bear in mind that this is purely hypothetical, if opendns were ever to be bought by another company (something which happens rather a lot in the IT world)...

"What on Earth do you think they can do with your IP address?" Are you serious? They will have a record of every website you visit, and can use that data to select adverts that you are more likely to respond to everytime one of their ad-panels appears on any page that has been requested by your IP address (and with VM cable connections, you have to go out of your way to force a change to your IP - so to all intents and purposes, we have static IP addresses). If you sign up for the "free account with added benefits" (which most uninformed punters will - afterall, it's something for "free" isn't it?) then they'll also have your name, address, e-mail, etc. and things could start to get really creepy - personalized messages containing your private details appearing in ad-panes on websites you've never been to before, e-mails out-of-the-blue with friendly, over-familiar messages saying "since you were looking at such-and-such on the web yesterday at 2.15pm, we thought you'd like to hear about our new product...". And before you say "ah, but they're not allowed to do that" don't forget: they're not bound by UK data protection or privacy laws, and the US equivalents are so weak as to be a joke- were opendns to be bought by someone like doubleclick, it would be like Facebook Beacon applied to virtually every website you're likely to visit (except the BBC - God bless 'em for not carrying advertising!)
This isn't paranoia; it's the dream business model for all advertisers, and I'm not the only one who doesn't want to be tracked by people whose sole purpose in life is to part me from my hard-earned cash. At best, I find advertising to be a minor annoyance, at worst it's downright intrusive. I don't need to be told what I want to buy - I know what I want to buy, and I'm quite capable of finding it myself.

Glad I got that off my chest- I'm off to find my tin-foil hat now. It keeps me warm at night and stops the aliens reading my thoughts...:spin:

Originally Posted by Losttheplot (Post 34465745)

Mmm. So you couldn't then just change away from their DNS servers and bypass any proxying and supplying of ads then? If it ever started.
:confused:

Originally Posted by Losttheplot (Post 34465745)

Mmm. So you couldn't then just change away from their DNS servers and bypass any proxying and supplying of ads then? If it ever started.
:confused:

Originally Posted by lucevans (Post 34465558)

Before signing-up, it's worth reading their privacy policy and bearing in mind that they are a US-based company who will store your look-up requests on servers outside the UK, and are not bound by (and will not abide by) UK data protection laws. Interestingly, under the "mergers and acquisitions" section of their PP, they openly state that all personally identifiable data held on you would be transfered to any acquiring business, who may well not hold the same views on your privacy as the current openDNS ethos (Just imagine if a company like doubleclick bought opendns) . Since the speed improvements are marginal for many VM users, and you already have business with VM, who are accountable under UK data protection law, I would say the benefits don't really outweight the potential risks here.

Originally Posted by Morden (Post 34466124)

Unlike Domain server DNS implmentation which is securely locked down safely, open DNS can be hacked.

http://www.computerworlduk.com/techn...fm?newsid=6600

As long as you check your site certificates you should be ok as you cant hack them.

Originally Posted by Morden (Post 34466124)

Unlike Domain server DNS implmentation which is securely locked down safely, open DNS can be hacked.

http://www.computerworlduk.com/techn...fm?newsid=6600

As long as you check your site certificates you should be ok as you cant hack them.