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OpenDNS- Good or Bad?

OpenDNS- Good or Bad?

Postby xxsonyboy4lfexx » Wed Aug 08, 2007 12:36 am

http://www.opendns.com/

Is this safe and ok to use? It seems like it is but I don't wanna do it unless I know of any problems that could happen. Will my network be ok and everything?
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Postby poisonbl » Wed Aug 08, 2007 1:26 am

Just looking at a few of the projects and other places OpenDNS shows up, they look not only to be legitimate, but actually active in fighting phishing. Looking a little deeper into the Google well of hits shows at least one major company using their service to save a lot of time, money, and manpower too. I don't see any outward signs of trouble from them (thccey even called out Google and Dell on a couple questionable things)

:source:
(1) OpenDNS Fills the PhishTank
(2) Google-Dell browser tool 'spyware,' charges OpenDNS founder
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Postby rippinchikkin » Wed Aug 08, 2007 1:46 am

I have been using OpenDNS for a few months now, and for the most part it as done really well. The only thing I don't like is that it will tend to belly up on some difficult or obscure searches then instead of getting the Google selection page, you get the opendns page with options. That kind of annoys me, but its minor.
My opinion, they do a good job.
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Postby xxsonyboy4lfexx » Wed Aug 08, 2007 2:04 am

I use Comcast cable as my provider. I heard that Comcast would be better than Open DNS. True?
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Postby poisonbl » Wed Aug 08, 2007 2:04 am

Another thing to note is that they use Yahoo as a backend to their "options page" mentioned above, rather than a) giving a choice, or b) using Google like everyone else :lol:
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Postby poisonbl » Wed Aug 08, 2007 2:14 am

xxsonyboy4lfexx wrote:I use Comcast cable as my provider. I heard that Comcast would be better than Open DNS. True?


Well, Comcast provides their own nameservers, but there are a few factors to consider and it all boils down to personal preference, Comcasts nameservers will likely do nothing about preventing phishing sites showing up from mistyped urls, on the other hand, they'll return a failed lookup response to your system instead of OpenDNS's options webpage (which can be problematic if you use nslookup to test the existence of a site, though I suppose in the end you can, yourself, identify that 208.69.32.130 belongs to OpenDNS and means what you were really after doesn't exist, or at least isn't listed anywhere that OpenDNS knows about)
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Postby xxsonyboy4lfexx » Wed Aug 08, 2007 2:20 am

So should I? I still dont really know.
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Postby poisonbl » Wed Aug 08, 2007 2:39 am

Security-wise, I don't see a reason not to, and the only way to determine which you prefer (which is what this boils down to, simple personal preference) is to try it a while. So far, I've seen little speed difference on resolving addresses (one of their "selling points"), but I'm also on cable, and name resolution is usually so fast for me that I hardly notice how long it takes unless I'm *really* looking.

As an added sales point in their favor:
rippinchikkin wrote:My opinion, they do a good job.
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Postby xxsonyboy4lfexx » Wed Aug 08, 2007 3:41 am

I checked the installation and click on XP and check on router since I use one. I have a Netgear but I have a different "menu" when I got to 192.... It's Comcast's and I cant change the DNS. Do I need to do the router? If so what should I do? And should I right down the current DNS server so I can switch back?
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Postby rippinchikkin » Wed Aug 08, 2007 10:27 am

your ISP (comcast) should have the addys on their web site, if you want to change back. With Time Warner, they did, I have been using OpenDNS since ours was switched to comcast (ugh, I really hate them, they are crooks) But thats another story.
Anyway switching is painless, and you can always switch them back if you are not pleased. Its not permanent its only redirecting your dns.
Like said, it all boils down to a matter of personal preference, I have not ever had much trouble with phishing, but the vast majority of sites I visit, I know and trust.
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