May 25, 2007 by keith
Posted in
No matter what you do on the web, or what site you are accessing using your preferred web browser, all of us will always want a lightning fast access. Although you might think by connecting directly to your Internet Service Provider's (ISP) DNS server, you are achieving an optimum access; unfortunately, that is not true. According to ComputerWorld,
...No matter how big the broadband pipe you use to surf the Web, it's not big enough. Everyone, whether they use a slowpoke dial-up modem or the fastest FiOS line, wants to surf faster...
Nonetheless, there is a quick and simple way to hack (or modify) the system configuration to change the Domain Name System (DNS) that is default on your PC (as provided by the ISP or yourself) to gain faster access to web sites. The simplest way to modify the DNS configuration to speed up web browsing experience, is to use the blazing-fast, free DNS servers run by the OpenDNS service.
The main reason of why OpenDNS service is highly recommended instead of your ISP's DNS servers is because OpenDNS has a extremely large pool of DNS cache, with several DNS servers situated all around the world. Hence, retrieving Internet Protocol (IP) addresses from these DNS servers is much quicker than retrieving them directly from your ISP's server.
In order to configure your DNS settings on your operating system, you will first need to know the two OpenDNS servers' IP addresses. They are:
- Primary: 208.67.222.222
- Secondary: 208.67.220.220
To use the OpenDNS servers in Windows XP, follow the procedures below:
Changing Configuration on Windows XP
- Click on Start > Control Panel to open up the Control Panel window. Then, click on Network Connections on the Control Panel to open up another window (as shown below).
- Right-click on the appropriate LAN or High-Speed Internet connection, e.g. Local Area Connection, and click on Properties.
- On the Local Area Connection window (see below), scroll down the item until it says Internet Protocol (TCI/IP). Select (by clicking once) on TCP/IP and then click on Properties button just below it. That will open up another window.
- On the Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) window, as shown below, select "Use the following DNS server addresses", and then input the values as shown on the picture.
- Finally, click OK (you need to click twice on two separate windows).
- Then, close the Network Connection windows.
Once that has been done, you will be using the OpenDNS servers instead of your ISP's DNS servers. The same procedure can be applied to other Windows operating systems, e.g. Windows Vista, Windows 2000, etc.
Note that, you may have to restart your PC in order for the new settings to take effect.
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Thanks!
Submitted by David Ulevitch (not verified) on Fri, 2007-05-25 15:42.
- reply
Thanks for the nice writeup and showing the instructions. Let us know what else we can do for you. :-)
-david
Cheers, David!
Submitted by keith on Sat, 2007-05-26 04:59.
- reply
Thank you, David. It is great to hear from an insider's comment.
Perhaps, the next article will be about configuration for Linux (and Mac OS X) environment to use OpenDNS.
Best regards,
Keith
Router Config
Submitted by Jon (not verified) on Sat, 2007-05-26 15:56.
- reply
If you have many computers in your house that all go through the same router, you can just plunk the OpenDNS servers into your router configuration and not worry about changing all of your individual computers. There are instructions for the more common routers on the on the OpenDNS site.
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