Takumi's Blog

DNS servers are what make domain names possible. Every internet-connected computer has an IP address, but remembering those are difficult, which is one of the reasons why domain names are much more useful. But in order for the domains to work, there needs to be a way to tell the client computer that the domain www.apple.com points to the IP address 17.254.3.183.

This is where DNS servers come in. These servers have huge databases that store the information that the client needs to connect to the web server. Probably all ISP’s use their own DNS servers to help speed up the queries, but when those DNS servers don’t know what IP address the domain points to, it asks one of the 13 root servers.

Depending on where you are, and where the DNS servers are, the time taken to find the IP address of a domain can vary. To speed up the process, there’s a service called OpenDNS.

Two things make OpenDNS faster than similar services. First, OpenDNS runs a really big, smart cache, so every OpenDNS user benefits from the activities of the broader OpenDNS user base. Second, OpenDNS runs a high-performance network which is geographically distributed and serviced by several redundant connections. OpenDNS responds to your query from the nearest location. That means we’re very fast (and extremely reliable, to boot).

Not only does OpenDNS speed up your internet performance, it also helps prevent phishing and fixes typos when you type in a domain (eg. apple.cm gets redirected to apple.com). Their service is easy to setup (all you need to do is set your router/computers DNS servers to 208.67.222.222 and 208.67.220.220).

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