I wonder, am I the only one this happens to? Occasionally, it will take awhile to connect to a website (www.google.com, mail.google.com, www.facebook.com, etc), but instead of showing an “unable to connect” page, this will pop up.
I’ve done a Google search and found what I believe to be their homepage. I clicked on the “How it Works” link, and I got this description:
OpenDNS is the world’s most intelligent DNS service. Our global network and our software work together symbiotically to offer a set of features custom-tailored to you, without requiring you to buy any hardware or install any software.
This is followed by a diagram with arrows pointing from a URL to Open DNS to an image of a website, and the text beneath the image reads:
The URLs you type are translated into computer-readable numbers that take you to websites.
Well, that’s… helpful…
It seems to be a lot of endorsement for something that, to me anyway, looks kind of superfluous. Am I completely missing the point? Anyone care to shed some light on the subject? And most importantly, how do I get it to stop hijacking my browser when it takes too long to connect?
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March 30, 2008 at 8:54 pm
Matt
OpenDNS is actually nothing malicious. It’s actually a great service that makes accessing internet services (not just websites) a lot faster.
You see, each computer/router (or node) on the internet is assigned an address, a.k.a IP Address, of the format xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx, which is a 32-bit string.
Now, you don’t honestly expect everyone in the world to remember 64.233.187.99 everytime you want to search for something on google.
Instead, you remember “google.com”, which is a domain name pointing to 64.233.187.99 (among other google IPs).
Now, typically, ISPs have their own local DNS servers that every computer accessing the internet via said ISP queries to translate a DNS into an IP address, like google.com.
Now, the problem is that a lot of these DNS servers are horribly slow (*cough* resnet *cought*) and can add a lot of overhead to your internet browsing experience. If you don’t know where to send your HTTP queries to, you can’t make any queries!
OpenDNS is a service that bypasses that old DNS server altogether and provides to you faster and more reliable DNS lookups! As a result, there is a significant improvement in your internet speeds!
The reason why OpenDNS redirected you to their search page when you make mistakes is because that’s how they make money. They make their money using advertising and search, so that they can give you this service for the oh so lovely cost of $0. They only do this when there is a lookup request timeout, or the domain simply doesn’t exist!
In conclusion, no need to fear. OpenDNS is an amazing service!
March 30, 2008 at 9:08 pm
Tara
Thanks Matty, for taking the time to clarify how Open DNS works!
March 30, 2008 at 10:02 pm
Mike Purvis
Well, the idea of trapping requests (even erroneous ones) and directing them to a commercial service is still controversial. Your browser does it regardless, but done at the ISP level is a little more sketchy. I know there was some exciting scandal recently involving OpenDNS, but I don’t remember details.
March 31, 2008 at 1:17 pm
Richard Cleaver
Looks like a few geeks beat me to it
Most folks who use the OpenDNS service do so to get website names resolved quickly — usually much faster than the DNS servers from their local Internet Service Provider. And, if the address is resolved quickly, browser access to the page is faster.
You can read all of the gory details here. Keep in mind that to gain the full benefit of OpenDNS, you would need to point your browser to their DNS servers. Going to their website to surf doesn’t give you much. The article describes how to do this in Windows HexP. Instructions for your Mac can be found here.
There are some privacy concerns in terms of using OpenDNS. They would obviously be able to track your web activity. But that is also true of your ISP.
If you want to impress the geek community, hack DNS.
March 31, 2008 at 7:26 pm
Richard Cleaver
One other quick comment. Based on your browser behaviour it looks like you are already pointing to the OpenDNS servers. Likely through the ISP at school.
March 31, 2008 at 9:17 pm
Matt
I set the default DNS servers on our wireless router to OpenDNS’ servers. So when Tara connects to our wireless and uses DHCP, her computer is automatically configured to use OpenDNS (only while on our wireless)
So in conclusion, Tara has been stealing wireless internet from us *gasp*.
That or I was the one who changed the default locally on her machine because resnet’s DNS servers frequently add seconds of overheard to each DNS query, which is bad.
March 31, 2008 at 9:26 pm
Tara
Is it stealing if you gave me the password for it?
April 2, 2008 at 1:50 am
David Ulevitch
Tara — Where are you located — I wonder if somehow you’re getting crappy performance from us. We shouldn’t ever be giving you our page for something like Google or Facebook which is almost always working flawlessly. It usually happens when you visit broken websites. Since I might not see your reply, a reply to david opendns dot com would be appreciated, if you care to help us debug it.
Thanks!
April 2, 2008 at 1:18 pm
Tara
Hi David,
Thanks for your comment. I’ve sent you a note; hopefully it helps. Your attention to performance quality is appreciated.