At home I’ve had pretty unreliable Internet service through the local cable company. Turns out they have a tough time keeping their DNS server(s) up and running so when I type “www.iliumsoft.com” into the browser, they often can’t translate the domain into the IP address and send me to the correct web page. Yesterday I read about an interesting solution to this kind of problem on Scott Hanselman’s blog, called OpenDNS.
After reading Scott’s article and the responses to it, I thought I’d give OpenDNS a try. The service is free and has some interesting side benefits if you register, including auto-correcting some common spelling errors when you type in a domain name and anti-phishing at the DNS level. The part I really like: no software to install. The instructions are very good — I ended up changing two DNS settings in my Linksys router and now my whole family can take advantage of the new service.
Want more information on their service or just on DNS in general? Check out their FAQ. So far their service seems pretty zippy and it has got to be more reliable than what my cable company is dishing up. Check out the service and let me know how it goes.