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After Google released their public DNS servers, there has been quite a bit of talk around the internet. Many not-so-tech savvy people have been pulled into this artificial DNS server war, and they simply don’t understand it. Frankly, 99.9% of all the DNS talk is garbage, and you really don’t need to worry about having “the best DNS servers” or anything like that. In order to wrap your head around this, you’ll need to know what DNS is.
DNS servers act like the white pages of the internet. They turn your text address (iblizz.net) into the numerical IP address that website is located at. That text to number conversion is called resolution.
How long does resolution take? Not even .1 of a second. So immediately you can dismiss everyone telling you OpenDNS is faster than ISP, or Google is faster than OpenDNS. You, a human being, won’t notice any difference in speed what so ever. If you spent time thinking about, and changing DNS because of speed. You might as well research every phone directory in your area to find the one with the least amount of garbage pages. Yeah, on paper you have the most efficient book. However, it’ll still take you the same amount of time to find the number to the mental institute as it would with any other book.
The only reason why you should question your current DNS server, and the only reason why I switched to Google, is because of DNS hijacking. If you type in a domain that doesn’t exist, in turn not having a numerical IP, it can’t resolve. Different DNS providers do different things at this point. My ISP, Mediacom, took my browser to their search engine, which I didn’t like. I tried OpenDNS, but again, it took me to their search engine. Google’s Public DNS is the only one that I know of that lets my browser do what it’s supposed to do when I mistype a domain name.
If you don’t care about what happens if you mistype a domain name, then again, you have no reason to even think about your DNS situation.
In conclusion, if you had never heard about DNS until recently, go back to being ignorant. I’ve heard it’s bliss, and in this case you’ll be fine.
Yes, you may hear of some ‘vulnerabilities’ in the current DNS system and may have been convinced that your system may be at risk. In all honesty, these security holes get fixed before they cause any problems…by ALL DNS providers. So don’t change because of security issues.
I also realize that OpenDNS extends the protocol and provides some features that may be useful to many people. Including, content filtering, parental control, and a few shiny graphs. These are legit reasons to switch to OpenDNS.
Tags: dns
All great points, but my big question is what is Google doing with all this information. I use other Google services and I would rather not have all my eggs in one basket. I use OpenDNS mainly because I don’t like using the Comcast DNS servers. They have blocked sites in the past. I also like some of the customization features OpenDSN offers that Google does not.
Funny you should mention that. My next draft post is on this issue. Privacy on the internet is non-existent. At a certain point, you’re going to have to trust someone with your information.
I look at not where my eggs are, but the fact they are out there, which again is inevitable. Would you rather have different info with different companies, risking part of your info being released if even one of those companies sell out. Or having everything with one company that you’ve trusted before?