My ISP suffered an outage in their DNS service
yesterday morning. You know how it is, you can access a website if you know the IP
address, but not using their domain name. In searching for a fix for this, I came
across OpenDNS who provide a free DNS service.
This is augmented by transparently blocking known phishing sites and also correcting
common typing errors in domain names (example changing .nt to .net)
They advertise the advantages of their service as being:
- Safer – automatic blocking of phishing sites
-
Faster – most
ISP don’t have a fast or resilient DNS infrastructure - Smarter – can corrent common spelling mistakes or suggest existing sites
- No software to install – Just a configuration setting in you TCP/IP settings
- Free
Their website is quite informative and explains the raison d’etre of the
organisation. The company operates in a very small niche, but is providing value to
its customers. The operate a free service, and make their revenue off ads from search
results when a user types in a non-existant domain name. i.e. in normal operation,
a user would not even be aware of their presence. It’s a great premise and I wish
them the best in their future endevours. You can keep in touch with their progress
via their blog