Talk:OpenDNS

Opt-In

From the article: "If a domain cannot be found, the service redirects you to a search page with search results and advertising provided by Yahoo!. A DNS user can switch this off via the OpenDNS Control Panel. "

How do you turn this of?? I've looked everywhere. I demand a step by step guide on this talk page or this needs to be removed from the article.

84.238.66.243 (talk) 20:43, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

RE: "I demand...", I don't think you understand how the internet works. 94.143.246.151 (talk) 02:17, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

It's under Advanced Settings in your Dashboard. 01:44, 21 June 2011 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.177.26.11 (talk)

why sign up required

I don't see why I need to sign up for a free dns service. All my computer needs is the IP address. What is the point of collecting my information?

Criticism

perhaps some discussion of criticism like the questionable benfits it offers over isp dns server in speed. once you cache the dns name - ip , its local and no need to contant dns server. -- 69.113.7.9 16:16, September 9, 2006 (UTC)

Since my ISP's DNS is busted 3/4 of the time, I think the criticism is droll. Ah, well... -- ke4roh 20:55, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

I noticed that The Criticism section needs some serious reworking, and some of the article reeks of POV and uncited sources. especially this line... "According to OpenDNS, additional services that run on top of its enhanced DNS service will be provided, and some of them may cost money. These announcements have caused some users who are suspicious of OpenDNS's agenda to drop the service."

OpenDNS mentions in BOLD print that they will NOT charge for DNS services, but some "premium" options (like those for businesses and such) would pay a nominal fee.

As for the Criticism section, OpenDNS is no longer centralised, and now works as a normal DNS would. Paul Vixie's criticisms brought OpenDNS to redesign. Source? http://lists.oarci.net/pipermail/dns-operations/2006-July/000816.html "typosquatting" can now be eliminated by setting up an account. Just clearing this up... 24.196.2.149 02:36, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks! Can someone please remove this false criticism of OpenDNS? (So I don't self-edit) There are certainly some folks out there who can find things they don't like about us, but this isn't one of them and it doesn't hold water. --Davidu 23:34, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

I have just removed the Criticism section - the only thing it contained was a criticism that DNS has redundancy, but OpenDNS does not; since OpenDNS is in fact redundant, the criticism was false. The Criticism section should be re-added at such a point as meaningful points can be added to it. Dweekly 23:46, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

I think you should put it back. I mean, they are blocking perfectly fine and decent websites, like beautifulagony.com (it's NOT porn, nor spam, nor do they involve in phising) 195.64.95.116 (talk) 15:38, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

I deleted the sentence "Note that web browsers are not the only users of DNS resolution service and for any other user, this way of resolving names is at best useless, and may be worse than replying that the name does not exist, as is normal" as an unsupported, unreferenced criticism. Fenwayguy (talk) 03:21, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

hacker reference?

in the article it mentions Mr. Ulevitch as being a "hacker", is there a source for this? Looking at the linked biographical page for him, shows no mention of him being a "hacker" of any sort. --adamh 02:07, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

Hmm, it might be saying "hacker" as in the type of person who "hacks" systems to improve them. Much like one "hacking" an xbox360 to run linux on it isn't harmful to anyone. The term "hacker" itself doesn't always have negative connotations. -- Tawker 03:15, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, I'm not a hacker in the malicious sense. I've never been arrested for or convicted of a computer crime. (or any crime for that matter) --Davidu 23:30, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

I changed it to computer scientist. It sounds much better than hacker and I don't think it's something that will carry questionable meanings. Jwh335 (talk) 08:21, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

I don't agree with this change. The broader (and original, non-tabloid) meaning of hacker is both well-known, (e.g. iPhone hacks), and well-used (e.g. lifehacker.com). If Mr Ulevitch made a practice of altering code and setups for fun and/or improved performance, then 'hacker' is the correct word. Computer scientist is a ridiculous substitution, it doesn't carry questionable meanings, but it is also a completely different meaning. We are trying for accuracy here, not for what 'sounds much better'. I will revert if there is no better reason. Centrepull (talk) 09:53, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

What do you think about 'programmer'? I don't think hacker is a good word to use here. Jwh335 (talk) 01:34, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

There is another alternative. Use hacker, but wikify - the different meanings are disambiguated at hacker. Alex McKee (talk) 20:59, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

How about "person." Not everything has to be marketed. Other WP articles don't insist on saying what a person is.94.222.183.253 (talk) 07:42, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

OpenDNS Guide

I just register with OpenDNS. I can confirm that "OpenDNS Guide" (their SiteFinder) service is not a "purely opt-in" service. It is turned on by default and I have yet figure out how to opt out. --Voidvector 20:14, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

I just register with OpenDNS -- Yeah, that pretty much means it's 100% opt-in. Even as a user you can still use us and turn things on or off. It doesn't get more opt-in than that. --Davidu 23:31, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

I think he meant there's one step more opt-in than that: that if you register, it's disabled by default. -- — Northgrove 00:28, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

So how do you turn it off? 80.177.58.134 (talk) 17:15, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

opendns ads?

I think the article should mention that when there is a problem resolving a hostname with opendns, it shows you a yahoo search page with ads from yahoo, and originally they didn't even tell you that their was a dns error on that page, until I brought this to their attention. Also why is this article not being deleted when 4.2.2.2 was deleted? Level 3, formerly GTE, allows public access to these dns servers. 4.2.2.1-8 all respond to dns requests except for 4.2.2.6 and .7. Family Guy Guy 18:29, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

conspiracy against 4.2.2.2/4.2.2.1

Why was the 4.2.2.2 article deleted but this one wasn't? A simple ping test proves that 4.2.2.2 is superior:

Ping statistics for 208.67.222.222:

   Packets: Sent = 10, Received = 10, Lost = 0 (0% loss),

Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:

   Minimum = 66ms, Maximum = 84ms, Average = 78ms

Ping statistics for 208.67.220.220:

   Packets: Sent = 10, Received = 10, Lost = 0 (0% loss),

Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:

   Minimum = 75ms, Maximum = 92ms, Average = 80ms

Ping statistics for 4.2.2.2:

   Packets: Sent = 10, Received = 10, Lost = 0 (0% loss),

Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:

   Minimum = 42ms, Maximum = 47ms, Average = 44ms

Ping statistics for 4.2.2.1:

   Packets: Sent = 10, Received = 10, Lost = 0 (0% loss),

Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:

   Minimum = 42ms, Maximum = 49ms, Average = 44ms

Ping statistics for 4.2.2.3:

   Packets: Sent = 10, Received = 9, Lost = 1 (10% loss),

Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:

   Minimum = 43ms, Maximum = 54ms, Average = 45ms

Ping statistics for 4.2.2.4:

   Packets: Sent = 10, Received = 10, Lost = 0 (0% loss),

Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:

   Minimum = 26ms, Maximum = 52ms, Average = 37ms

Family Guy Guy (talk) 18:07, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Ping is not necessarily the best indicator of performance. That being said, OpenDNS advertises itself as being a distinct server rather than just another nameserver whic people can use. Thats at least the rationale that makes sense to me -- Tawker (talk) 00:32, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

Feb 2008

Suggested for inclusion:

A lot of internet users in Denmark are switching to opendns, since Tele2, a Swedish-owned ISP is now blocking access to The Pirate Bay. Register article

"The ruling of IFPI vs. Tele2 was officially released a few hours ago. It concludes that the ISP -Tele2- assist in copyright infringement because they give their customers access to The Pirate Bay, therefore they have to prevent access to the site." also [1]

--81.105.243.17 (talk) 17:36, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

Covert redirection of google

This is an important point about security and trustworthiness. I can attest that this is true from personal experience, but considering the No-original-research maxim, I find that this is also described at [2], at [3] and even by OpenDNS themselves (incredibly) at [4] .

Wikipedians are asked to monitor this, to see if the section mysteriously disappears. CecilWard (talk) 09:49, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

It just redirected me when i clicked on [4] [5]. 202.188.138.63 (talk) 06:58, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

more.. 208.69.34.230 => google.navigation.opendns.com 208.69.34.231 => google.navigation.opendns.com 208.69.34.232 => microsoft.navigation.opendns.com 208.69.34.233 => microsoft.navigation.opendns.com 208.69.34.234 => yahoo.navigation.opendns.com 208.69.34.235 => yahoo.navigation.opendns.com

(http://forums.opendns.com/comments.php?DiscussionID=307) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dramastic (talk • contribs) 03:18, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

Followup: do editors feel that the current text in this section now accurately and comprehensibly documents what is happening here. The point remains that OpenDNS are operating a fake clone webserver that looks visually like google and are convertly redirecting users to it? Granted that they are documenting this quite openly on their website and its all in the TOS yadda yadda.. and I'm not convinced that their so doing is in any way malicious, although I think it is a bad decision. And goodness knows what google must think seeing as they are using Google's copyrighted imagery, branding.

The point remains that they did not have to do this. And they certainly did not have to go to such lengths to make visitors think that they are actually visiting Google when they are not, indeed they could have put their own name+branding on it.

Would someone who is rather more NPOV than myself review the current text?CecilWard (talk) 16:28, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure people in this discussion (which is, admittedly, pretty old) all understand the difference between proxying and redirecting. The Google page you're seeing is still served by Google, it's just proxied by OpenDNS, which is why google.com resolves to their IPs. Hence the term "OpenDNS Proxy". --71.116.108.149 (talk) 15:30, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

Alternatives

Are there any alternatives to OpenDNS? -- Frap (talk) 00:33, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

Apparently, http://www.dnsadvantage.com/ provides a competitive service. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.31.225.194 (talk) 21:57, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

There's also a list at http://theos.in/windows-xp/free-fast-public-dns-server-list/ . —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.31.225.194 (talk) 22:05, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

See also http://ccc.de/censorship/dns-howto/#dnsserver --87.173.246.145 (talk) 08:18, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

"closed source"?

how is this relevant? --85.228.206.241 (talk) 23:45, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

I'm sure many others like me would otherwise assume that its name implies it's open source. --Espoo (talk) 12:11, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

What does that even mean? As far as I can tell, it's a DNS service, not a piece of software. Some searching on Google News doesn't turn up any reliable sources that use the phrase "closed source" in reference to their services, either. Do you mean that it doesn't release the source code for the software that runs its servers? If so, that doesn't fit into the FSF definition of "non-free" software, which doesn't cover software that isn't distributed in the first place. --Delirium (talk) 01:03, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

not affected by Kaminsky flaw

[6] --Espoo (talk) 12:12, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Privacy issues, conflicts and covert redirection

I made a change to this section, I'm not an experienced wikipedian so I'll explain what I've modified:

I removed this section:

implemented this typo-correcting service: mistyped addresses would be corrected and directed to the correct address; keyword addresses would direct to OpenDNS's search page; comma-separated keywords would result in OpenDNS search results. Each would start with an unpaid link to the suggested correction.

Since it seems a rip-off from the david ulevitch post, more precisely this table:

Typed	Dell/Google	OpenDNS
Digg.xom	Paid results	Automatically typo-corrected
Digg	Paid results	Shortcut / Search results
Digg,com	Paid results	Search results

and since that section was talking about the same thing as the "Conflicts" paragraph, I decided to merge these (and modified the title accordingly... I hope that's not too clumsy)...

For the next change, I have left off references of the toolbar since that's not fundamental... and besides that it seems that uninstalling it doesn't solve the issue of the dell/google search ad-ridden page (the "Browser Address Redirector Error" is another thing)...

I left off this sentece:

Browsers configured to omit this parameter do not get redirected and address-bar searches are sent to Google as normal.

since i verified myself by changing the keyword.URL config string in firefox, that removing parameters doesn't change the behaviour.

Moreover I even tried modifying it to use "http://64.233.169.99/search?hl=en&q=" to search... so avoiding (or so i hoped!) the dns query and therefore activating the opendns guide redirect...

I finally changed "everybody" to "whoever has an account", since not everybody who uses OpenDNS has a OpenDNS (free but facultative) account...

As you maybe have guessed I'm not English mother tongue either... so I hope to have been quite correct in what I've wrote...

Tiibiidii (talk) 23:09, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

Would someone who is an experienced but independent OpenDNS user review this section? The section makes a number of dubious claims, and the reference given is to an article that hardly seems to constitute a "reliable source". I myself who started the section am guilty too here as I'll freely admit that I wrote the original text according from the results of personal experience, and didn't put in citations there and then, but wrote up my experience after I had noticed that OpenDNS was indulging in this highly questionable behaviour. At the time, there were admissions to be found on the OpenDNS site itself (incredibly), and these should have been used as citations "from the horse's mouth". The "explanation" for this behaviour, something vague and semi-joined-up, about "Dell were bad so we had to be bad too" doesn't really make much sense, as it isn't up to OpenDNS to fix Dell's bad behaviour. Intentionally returning false DNS results for google domains is never cool when it's done without informed consent, and especially not cool displaying the Google logo in content coming from a non-google website. I would like an independent opinion on this and would like to hear others' views on whether the section as currently written is "joined up".CecilWard (talk) 10:06, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

Edit protect

With the IP addresses of the DNS servers in the article, it may be a good idea to restrict editing access to registered users. Imagine the golden opportunity for a phisher or other bad guy: One quick edit, and he can fool users into moving to his custom-made DNS server(s)... 188.100.197.94 (talk) 14:18, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

Absolutely! How would we go about this (as I have no idea)? I did have a go, but found the instructions _completely bewildering_ as they assume far too much familiarity with Wikipedia. Could we recruit some help?CecilWard (talk) 10:20, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

I think that as long as this article is watched by enough people in enough time zones, any addition should be removed immediately. My tip would be to leave a comment <!--Please remove any unsourced addition of IPs to this list, thanks.--> like this just above the list, so that people using Huggle or Popups will be able to see the vandalism immediately. Does that sound okay? SS✞^(Kay) 10:44, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

The IP addresses could also be transcluded from a protected template without protecting the article, like I did with Template:EICAR test file for EICAR test file#Design. PrimeHunter (talk) 11:41, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

The addresses are now transcluded from {{OpenDNS IP addresses}}, which is fully protected. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 14:57, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

And the RPP report is now closed as declined, as the usage of the transcluded template removes the need to protect this page. Thanks, --Taelus (talk) 20:46, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

Is there a particular reason that we have to list the IPs anyway? They're not especially notable. We don't list the IPs of any other DNS services. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 12:29, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

Indeed, I'm opposed to hiding them in a template for some of the reasons thumperward has given. First, it goes against the ethos of not only Wikipedia but also WP:ROUGH, which says protection should only be used in cases of abuse. The IPs haven't been changed, have they? Certainly they haven't been vandalized/bad-faith changed often. Second is the WP:NOTDIRECTORY argument: wikipedia is not a howto, it isn't hard to find them listed at the authoritative source. The final argument is akin to the Judgment of Solomon. If it's that big of a concern, let OpenDNS worry about it, not Wikipedia. tedder (talk) 17:59, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

The template solution is bogus and should be removed immediately (fake security) as there's nothing to stop a user from deleting the section where the template is used and inserting plain text the old fashioned way. (Unless I'm going mad. Which is possible.)CecilWard (talk) 10:26, 22 April 2010 (UTC)

An earlier poster's point about "sufficient numbers" of watchers is a good one. That alone is a powerful mechanism. I disagree with the previous poster's view "let opendns worry about it", which in my view is complacent and neglects the fact that many internet users are inexperienced or naive in security matters. Overall, we will have done the right thing here and this will have been a worthwhile exercise if the number of watchers is sufficient.CecilWard (talk) 10:26, 22 April 2010 (UTC)

Maybe this should serve as a precedent - that security awareness culture should be promoted and a number of watchers be explicitly recruited in other similar situations, for example where bogus contact details might be _added_ never mind altered, for a police force for example (god forbid). Scary example - the Wiki article "Emergency_telephone_number".CecilWard (talk) 10:26, 22 April 2010 (UTC)

Service locations

I hardly think the sentiment behind this edit and its associated edit summary is appropriate. Unless a secondary source can establish why the precise list of service areas is notable then it's just yet more trivia; Wikipedia is not a mere collection of factual data from primary sources. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 21:07, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

it is free ad-supported service

Hello. I'd added "ad-supported" after the word free in the first sentence. Please, dont' remove this, I have 2 ref's in the comment after "ad-supported". If you want to revert it, fell free to discuss it first here or I'll rollback it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by A5b (talk • contribs) 22:48, 22 July 2010

I added the same thing. My edits got removed by the same IP user. Might be fishy, but I'll assume good faith. I believe this is an important, defining facet of this service that should be clearly stated in the article. If someone believes otherwise, they should make their case here rather than simply revert our changes. Likewise, I added a note that it's closed-source software. That's not really a defining quality, so it could be mentioned elsewhere in the article, but I see no reason to leave it out. Mfb52 (talk) 22:08, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

I kept reverting because the whole "closed source" thing has been discussed before and its not relevant. In DNS terms "open" means available for public use (i.e. an open recursive server), not free software. The mention of "closed source" confuses this point. Also your ref link to browserspy.dk is just too spammy, I see nothing but search engine bait on that site. --76.218.202.51 (talk) 08:38, 5 August 2011 (UTC)

I just added the "closed source" bit because I wondered about this, seeing as it's called OpenDNS, and none of the other free DNS providers seem to be open source. This browserspy.dk website was the first thing that came up in Google that explained about this. It seems there was no consensus in the earlier discussion on this topic. If you don't like it, maybe it should be put up for discussion again. But please don't revert any edits in their entirety if there's just one change in particular you don't like about it. Mfb52 (talk) 15:30, 6 August 2011 (UTC)

I like your subsequent edits much better, definitely not something worth being in the intro paragraph. What do you think about removing the citation? It seems to be enough of a non issues that no reliable sources mention it. --76.218.202.51 (talk) 04:44, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for your feedback. The citation is not really in the way though, is it? Would it be better without it? Mfb52 (talk) 22:39, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

Bing instead of Yahoo! now?

I just set up OpenDNS for my router yesterday, and it seems to send queries to Bing now instead of Yahoo! when the domain name can't be resolved. I know that Microsoft and Yahoo! have a partnership over Bing searches, so perhaps this is a new arrangement with OpenDNS. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.180.87.32 (talk) 19:24, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

'Faster'

It's a weasel word, plain and simple. It's puffery and completely relative. Q ^{T C} 04:24, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

The source that is given [7] is a personal review, and uses the word "faster" only in the title. Maybe OpenDNS is faster, but it would take a lot more to prove it than this source provides.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 09:01, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

Most of the sources for something like this are going to be first-hand accounts. Would you object to citing OpenDNS's own page on the technical features behind the speed claim as a source? I personally don't think its big enough of a deal to need its own citation. 76.218.202.51 (talk) 09:23, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

Strictly speaking, OpenDNS is not a reliable source about itself, and the "faster" claim would need independent verification. "Faster" presumably refers to the DNS lookup times, and this article (which seems to know what it is talking about) questioned whether this was true. In practice, the "faster" claim is almost impossible to prove, because there are so many different ISPs and websites that an enormous trial would be needed to give any meaningful answer on the "faster" claim. For this reason, I think it is best to leave the "faster" claim out of the article and to focus on the additional features offered by OpenDNS, which are much easier to cite reliably.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 09:55, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

You can use Namebench to test it yourself. For me, OpenDNS is usually the third fastest, preceded by UltraDNS and the google DNS. 76.177.26.11 (talk) 01:52, 21 June 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, when I ran Namebench from a UK location, there was no great difference in the performance times of OpenDNS, UltraDNS and Google Public DNS (result here). Like different washing powders all claiming to wash the whitest, it may be hard to say which DNS server is the fastest. This is WP:OR as far as the article is concerned, but Namebench is a useful piece of testing software.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 08:21, 21 June 2011 (UTC)