As stated before DNS is a not smart system. It takes exactly what you type and looks for it. If it finds what you typed it sends it to you. If it doesn’t find what you wanted it tells you it doesn’t exist. If you use Internet Explorer you might get an MSN search page that says I can’t find what you are looking for, but here are some links to pages that might be what you are after. But that’s about as intelligent as it gets.
OpenDNS has decided to take DNS lookup further. It can correct spelling mistakes in your URLs. Did you type WebHostBlog.cm well it will change it to WebHostBlog.cOm. So for common mistakes instead of getting stopped and having to retype your address or pick one from a list, your DNS service does it for you. If you are like me this is a godsend. There are days when I just can seem to spell anything right.
Making the Internet Safer
When it comes to making the Internet safer David provided some incite, “so when people think of things like spam, and phishing, and botnets and all kinds of abuse on the Internet almost all of these things start out using DNS in some way shape or form.” A phishing site needs to have a domain name pointing to an IP address. Therefore DNS lookup tables need to be used. Botnets require a point of attack, again lookup tables. In fact, it’s amazing how many things that abuse the Internet system rely heavily on that system to propagate.
At the time of this writing, OpenDNS blocks known phishing sites and lets you know that the site you were going to is a phishing site. With more and more phishing sites being added to the phishing database, OpenDNS offers good protection.
What is OpenDNS?
“Control.” To paraphrase Morpheus from The Matrix. All of the above are excellent reasons why OpenDNS is an amazing product however there is more. Going back to the motto, OpenDNS is designed to make the Internet work better. It does this by giving you the power to use the features you want to use. And the whole thing is free to use. Merely set your router, browser, mobile device, what have you, to the OpenDNS nameservers or follow the instructions provided for your device, and away you go. If you want to fine-tune the experience, create an account at the My Account tab and select the options you want. And if they improve their technology in the future, you are automatically covered with no need to change anything.
OpenDNS does what it was intended to do. It really does make your Internet work better.
