What is Digg?157 Comments
- spindrift, on 10/11/2007, -2/+118Watch as I hack my startup programs by going to start>run>msconfig. Now I'm going to hack my browser by installing an extension. Later I think I'll hack myself a sandwich.
- DesolataX, on 10/11/2007, -3/+87Changing your DNS server is not hacking your DNS. One nice thing about OpenDNS is that it also corrects errors such as .cmo -> .com, also when it can't find a website or a website is down, it searches for you. I've actually noticed a slight, very minute speed boost from when I hit enter, but that is just because Shaw's DNS servers suck, everything about Shaw sucks.
You can also make shortcuts if you create an account, for example, if you want to go to mail.yahoo.com, you can just type in mail and make it a shortcut, and it will direct you to mail.yahoo.com, but who uses yahoo mail??? - Jakyll, on 10/11/2007, -23/+90Buried as "Lame." What's this going to save, maybe 4ms?
- mrfoos2, on 10/11/2007, -5/+60So what is OpenDNS doing with all the dns query logs? Collecting information to sell to whom?
"
Does OpenDNS track where I go on the Internet or store data about my usage?
No. OpenDNS does not track where you go or what you do on the Internet, unless you ask us to. OpenDNS stores the following data by default:
* which domain names were requested at what time
* which requests OpenDNS was unable to resolve
* for more details, please read the OpenDNS Privacy Policy
"
Still not sure what they're storing. - Rhino2, on 10/11/2007, -2/+39
1) This isn't "hacking" DNS... this isn't some super 1337 hAx0r tweak that no one knows about... it's very basic networking.
2) This will only save you a few hunderd milliseconds (at Most) - and only on the first query [most OSes and webbrowsers cache DNS requests and don't query very time you load something from that domain]
3) It's a lot faster to run your own local caching DNS server (on your local lan) and use that to cache and keep track of your requests.
4) Majority of time these public DNS servesr are faster: 4.2.2.1 / 4.2.2.2 then opendns.org
5) Majority of the time your local ISPs DNS servers are faster (since they are closer, network wise) then opendns.org
6) Opendns.org changes ***** around on you (changes .ocm to .com for example) which can be a PITA if your doing some network troubleshooting.
for example, if you ping google.ocm to test out a non-pingable address, opendns will reslove it for you (even thoug it should NOT reslove).
7) opendns.org isn't "Open" as in OSS. It contributes nothing back to the OSS community and it's name is misleading (it doesn't open any of it's records, software or nothing - so why they call themselves "open" ? )
8) They are one step above in the internet sleazy food chain from "domain pakers/stealers" - zyl0x, on 10/11/2007, -0/+31Looks like a big, wordy advertisement to me.
- spindrift, on 10/11/2007, -1/+31Kudos for mentioning that you have a blog without automatically spamming the link to it.
- kraemer007, on 10/11/2007, -1/+22Dugg down for being obscenely stupid.
Why not just run your own caching DNS server? Its faster than OpenDNS, because its at your house! - KennMac, on 10/11/2007, -5/+23I wouldn't bury the article, as it can actually benefit people who mediocre DNS servers. But for most, you're right, your browsing really won't be noticeably faster.
- iamnos, on 10/11/2007, -6/+24Agreed. They suggest putting entries in hosts: What happens on multi-hommed sites (like digg). All of a sudden your only hitting one IP address, which might be taken off-line for servicing.
OpenDNS may have a huge cache, but even that isn't going to save you much time. You're much closer (network-wise) to your ISPs (or your own) DNS servers. Contacting their DNS server's is not going to be all that much faster than an actual full DNS look up. And, if by some chance the domain isn't in their cache, is most likely going to take LONGER to look it up. - BobTurtle, on 10/11/2007, -0/+17@rubah
You can tell OpenDNS to not do the search crap by disabling "Enable typo correction" from your OpenDNS account. The option is enabled by default and I find it annoying so I turned it off. - Kenzan, on 10/11/2007, -7/+23This IS Lame.
Changing your DNS servers isn't the same as "hacking DNS."
Also, don't create a Hosts file. It will come back to haunt you.
Seriously, is a millionth of a second really important? - aggies11, on 10/11/2007, -2/+16I love to "hack" MS Word, by pressing keys on my keyboard to create documents....
Aggies - brianheys, on 10/11/2007, -2/+15It's not just the speed increases that you benefit from with OpenDNS. I recently blogged about it myself, after doing a little research. You also benefit from more uptime. My ISP's DNS servers are always going down. When they do, OpenDNS is the alternative.
- iamnos, on 10/11/2007, -0/+10@turpenine
No, putting sites in your hosts file can come back to haunt you. Big sites like digg have multiple IPs. Let DNS choose the one to go to as opposed to randomly picking one to go to all the time. That IP could be down, or the server overloaded. Or suppose the domain is actually using dynamic DNS.
There's a lot of problems with putting IPs in a hosts file... that's why they built DNS in the first place. - etandrib, on 10/11/2007, -1/+11Buried as "Inaccurate". This is not a "hack". The title should read, "Change your DNS settings for faster web browsing".
- EruLabs, on 10/11/2007, -1/+10Spaceman:
there we go! I too was looking up and down the article going "what about PhishTank?".
My DNS (dnsmasq, gentoo07, DS3(90/30) to Level3 datacenter)
Best for me. Most reliable, quickest, most 'lightning-like'
My ISPs DNS (well, not really. If you live on the west coast your ISP is just a reseller, so you're actually using Verizon or SBCs DNS servers)
Good, kept up-to-date and nice and clean. Verizon is very strict about the DNS servers, so thats a good thing. Not too fast, but they are default.
OpenDNSs DNS (distributed around the world, connected to PhishTank, connected to DNS blacklists kept by the DNS root zone (0.0.0.0/0), deathly reliable , pretty quick)
BEST FOR EVERYONE!
heres why:
OpenDNS is a non-profit company
OpenDNS follows ALL (ALL) of the DNS consortium laws and guides (ie: respecting network neutrality)
OpenDNS plans on mitigating millions of DNS records from the root zone into its network (the ability to resolve a hostname without contacting the root DNS server) What does this mean: It means that when the Bush Admin. gets the Root DNS keys, theres a chance he cant track 100% of your activity... maybe just 99%.
OpenDNS is fairly quick (noone can tell the difference) and is a HUUUGGGEEE boon to windows machines prior to a network connection (spyware and malware cannot 'talk' to their servers)
Dumb article. - culbeda, on 10/11/2007, -1/+10The article was entirely too lame. Anyone smart enough to determine whether these fixes should be used already knows about them. But here are the highlights for those who don't know any better:
* Change your DNS to OpenDNS - For most, a bad idea as it will increase the latency of DNS requests
* Add entries to your HOSTS file - Bad idea as IP's change and/or are load balanced. You'll waste more time troubleshooting this than you'll EVER save.
* Change your DNS cache - This idea has SOME merit, ASSUMING you are smart enough to know how to flush your cache if you think you're having a problem. (ipconfig /flushdns) Without this knowledge, you could also lead yourself into problems and spend more time troubleshooting that you're likely to save. - OBKenobi, on 10/11/2007, -1/+10[quote]You're much closer (network-wise) to your ISPs (or your own) DNS servers.[/quote]
That's usually not true. My ISP's (Earthlink) DNS servers via Time Warner, which is a standard config for many people, are no closer to me than OpenDNS' servers. Do a traceroute of your ISPs servers and one to OpenDNS.
Me -> Earthlink: 13 hops, 4 subnets
Me -> OpenDNS 10 hops, 3 subnets - evanfrey, on 10/11/2007, -1/+9how is this hacking dns?
- KennMac, on 10/11/2007, -6/+14Speak for yourself.
- SpacemanSpiff, on 10/11/2007, -3/+11I'm surprised that the article didn't mention what I see as its biggest benefit. OpenDNS uses the list of known phishing websites from PhishTank to block said websites (it gives you a big warning if you try to go to it). For that reason alone, I have set it up on all of my family's home networks.
- ViceVirtue, on 10/11/2007, -1/+9How about you set up your network server with dnsmasq? A very simple DNS caching server with DHCP. It's a bloody excellent server.
- mysonscool, on 10/11/2007, -2/+10Is this an Ad for OpenDNS? How are their servers going to be any faster than my ISPs that are one hop away?
- Scotty87, on 10/11/2007, -0/+8@spindrift
I must agree, I don't understand why people use "hack" so much out-of context - FuzzyCat, on 10/11/2007, -1/+9I dunno,
2 opendns articles in a short space of time is enough for me to think this is just gaming digg (badly) .or trying to get attention. but it might just be me being overcautious... - etandrib, on 10/11/2007, -1/+8I have a DNS server connected to my airport connection and that is way faster than OpenDNS. I've tried a few of the alternative DNS servers and my local server is still consistently faster… I haven't done any actual speed tests… just my own observations.
- mrfoos2, on 10/11/2007, -1/+8I have access to 4 different networks in 4 different states on 4 different network providers. In all my tests, not one time was OpenDNS faster than my default DNS server.
I guess it's good to know a backup service though. - pbaehr, on 10/11/2007, -0/+7Please, stop! Your sentences make my brain hurt.
- SteveyDevey, on 10/11/2007, -2/+9@Scotty87:
Because it often grabs the attention of the less informed. Lowest common denominator = more diggs. :( - cbreaker, on 10/11/2007, -0/+6Huge caches don't impress me. I'm much more concerned with standards-compliant and accurate data. OpenDNS is helping nobody by caching records for as long as they want, versus the recommendation stored in the SOA of any particular domain. If I need to move a data center, and addresses are going to change, I make sure I set DNS caches low so people start connecting to the new addresses as soon as possible. Same with mail records, etc.
DNS just works. No need to screw with it. - tavisjohn, on 10/11/2007, -1/+7What this is ALSO good for is if your ISP's DNS goes down.
2 years ago Comcast's DNS servers went down. SO I had internet access, but I could not get to most websites. Then a friend helped me setup my network to use OpenDNS. I was able to surf the net again, even with Comcast's DNS servers were still down! I complained to Comcast, and they credited my account for 2 weeks of outage. But thanks to OpenDNS I was still able to use my internet!
It is handy to have if you decide to use your Cell as a modem, OR you have one of those celular data cards, OR you use some free WiFi systems. Because there is always a chance that OpenDNS will resolve a domain name faster than the DNS provided by those services. - jkgm, on 10/11/2007, -1/+6Another great reason to use OpenDNS is if your ISP has chosen to redirect failed lookups to their ad-driven "search" site rather than return an error message.
- FyberOptic, on 10/11/2007, -2/+7Firstly, you're not 'hacking' anything here. I hate when that word is misused by the non tech savy. It's bad enough that its original meaning has been distorted to be negative by the media, but these days it gets applied to simple changing of settings.
Second, the article description portrays changing DNS servers as a miracle of science that will make your entire internet faster. No, it won't. If you save one second of load time by doing this, however, that might be the miracle.
Third, OpenDNS is mostly crap for the general user. If you type an url they think is misspelled, they automatically send you to the "correct" place, even if that's not where you wanted to go. If you type in a page that doesn't exist, you don't get normal 404 pages, either, which can break certain software expecting to get back an error. The page you get instead is advertisement-based and offers suggestions, similar to the ***** Charter recently implemented on their service (which I circumvented with an alternate DNS server entirely). There are other little quirks about the service which I'm sure many users wouldn't particularly like, either. A business might find it useful due to some of the advanced features (for which they charge), but that's about it in my opinion.
So, marked as lame, mostly since we've seen countless OpenDNS articles already anyway, which don't make it sound like the second coming. - wolferz, on 10/11/2007, -2/+7First off this is a blatant miss-use of the word "hack". Hacking insinuates doing something that was not intended. For example: gaining access to the hard drive of another computer over the network via security vulnerabilities in the Windows TCP/IP stack. A vulnerability and all other hacks are by nature undocumented (initially) and are not a feature. Nothing shown in this article is undocumented and all of them are features. Further more they are the same features every other DNS server supports.
Second your ISP's DNS servers are generally the fastest DNS servers for you as the distance between you and the DNS servers (over the internet) is shorter than other DNS servers. This results in lower latency. The exception to this is when your isp's dns servers are over loaded, in which case you should look into another ISP instead of trying to put a band aid on a severed leg. Caching is a non-issue as all ISP DNS servers cache and how much DNS info they cache is (if they follow the standards) not even set by that DNS server. Any server that caches more info than normal is likely send you to the wrong ip address because of outdated info in their cache.
Host files are useless and counter-productive in many cases. By setting ip to domain name resolutions in the hosts file you are hard-wiring something which is meant to be automatic. It can make any service that changes IP addresses constantly (google.com for example) inaccessible if the IP you have hard wired into you host files is no longer one that they are using or if the server the IP points to goes down for maintenance. The hosts file is intended for use to speed access to info on a corporate network or (often slow) intranet. It is not an alternative for automatic DNS.
"Negative entries" as the article puts it are a non-issue except in rare cases and can be solved with a dns flush without altering how your system functions.
Finally, the actual speed increase the average person will receive is negligible. That 4.7 gigabyte dvd-rip wont download any faster. It will just take a half of an eye-blink less time for the download to start.
Over all the article is a lot of nothing. The information and techniques mentioned while technically correct are mostly pointless and often counter-productive. Any one that doesn't know exactly what they are doing should avoid following any of the instructions in this article. Any one who knows what they are doing likely wont want to unless they have a special reason.
I've not yet buried any stories in my time on digg, but this one is so blatantly off-base and so clearly written by ether a shill or an idiot that I have to mark it as lame. - iamnos, on 10/11/2007, -2/+6@KennMac
Here's the thing... generally, in any browsing session, you're only going to use DNS to look up each domain once. So you go to www.google.com. DNS does a look up, returns you the IP address, and your browser happily loads the serach page. Using OpenDNS could possibly save you a few milliseconds of time there, or, it could actually take longer than your ISPs DNS.
Now, you type in your search term and hit search. Guess what? At this point, OpenDNS doesn't do anything for you... you've already cached the IP, so you're not looking it up again. Its not saving you any more time, its not going to give you "lightning-fast Web browsing".
Heck, to make up the time it takes to actually make these changes, you'd probably have to LITERALLY surf millions of different domains (not just pages). Of course if you happen to reinstall your machine during that time, you'll have to make the changes again.
Unless your ISP's DNS servers are really bad, this is not going to make any noticeable difference. - brasso, on 10/11/2007, -3/+7Buried as "Inaccurate" because if your ISP is anything than incredibly crappy this is more likely to slow you down than making your web browsing any faster.
- saruman7, on 10/11/2007, -2/+6Because your ISP's DNS servers have to do recursive queries for foreign domains (i.e. anything not in your ISP's domain) or for any domains that it doesn't have cached at the moment. The article says that OpenDNS maintains a huge DNS cache, which means no recursive lookups, which means faster response times.
- NOaimKiller, on 10/11/2007, -0/+4So you use a different DNS server, where is the "Hack"?
- merreborn, on 10/11/2007, -0/+4"Seriously, is a millionth of a second really important?"
A millisecond is 1/1000th of a second, not a millionth. Round trip to your ISP's DNS is usually in the realm of 16 ms at best, and a DNS query can take up to 2 seconds, or fail completely, depending on how bad your DNS server is. Here at work, we're using SBC DSL, and their DNS server has been *terrible*, with frequent outages. Switching to a non-SBC public DNS server saved us hours of downtime.
I agree though, in most cases, the suggestions in this article suck. OpenDNS will be slower for most people, and the suggestion to put things in your HOSTS file is braindead. The idea of cutting your negative DNS cache lifetime to zero is also probably a bad idea. - Query, on 10/11/2007, -0/+4There are instructions for other operating systems on the OpenDNS site. http://opendns.com/
/comment spam - dingleberry, on 10/11/2007, -0/+4Looks to me like OpenDNS is using digg to advertise. Reported as spam.
- FyberOptic, on 10/11/2007, -0/+4@bellend
Based on your comment history, I suppose the chance that you may have actually read my comment long enough to respond to it is high praise! - Nick22, on 10/11/2007, -3/+6Scratch that, I actually didnt configure it (thought I did), and when I did the speed was pretty much the exact same.
So basically, waste of time. - Leviathan777, on 10/11/2007, -0/+3Yeah, putting an ad block list in your hosts file is fun. Speeds up my web browsing!
- mashed45, on 10/11/2007, -2/+5that be proper hacking. wow editiing a hosts file? I thought they invented dns cause hosts files were getting too big.
- linuxdaemon, on 10/11/2007, -0/+3Hard coding entries in a hosts file is a bad idea. IPs are not constant. People change providers, add load balancing, move addresses to deal with maintenance. If you make an entry in your hosts file and some provider you have in there changes something 8 months down the road, you are going to waste more time trying to figure out why the site isn't working than the 2 ms you saved by not going to your ISPs DNS servers.
OpenDNS is not a bad choice, setting up a local caching DNS server is a good option too. - HappyScrappy, on 10/11/2007, -0/+3Why would opendns be faster than the DNS run by my ISP, which I can reach without even going through peering out onto the internet. Answer: it wouldn't.
Besides, opendns edits their database to remove domains they feel are predatory (mostly typosquatters and phisers). They do this on their own accord, responsible to no one. This is the opposite of net neutrality.
Buried as inaccurate. - KennMac, on 10/11/2007, -0/+2@iamnos
No need for explanation, my reply was to the last sentence of his post. I fully understand how DNS works.
"Downloads and uploads are the main reason for users to want a faster connection, not having a webpage load one second faster."
To that I said, "Speak for yourself." - HalFTW, on 10/11/2007, -0/+2@Jakyll (#6852905)
Some ISPs transparantly proxy DNS requests to handle them with their own servers, so using openDNS will not work.
By some I mean http://www.ask4.com/ Realy crappy ISP. -
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