D-Link and OpenDNS Team Up

[Jason Dunn]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://techcrunch.com/2011/07/20/d-link-and-opendns-to-bring-parental-controls-to-your-router/' target='_blank'>http://techcrunch.com/2011/07/20/d-...to-your-router/</a><br /><br /></div><p><em>"Today's kids have grown up in a world where the internet has always been around, Google has always been there to help, and having a smartphone is the norm. It only follows that they'd be super comfortable with the web, using it just as proficiently, if not more so, than their parents. That's all well and good, but there's this one pretty huge problem: the internet is dangerous. That's why D-Link and OpenDNS have partnered to put OpenDNS on all new models of consumer model D-Link routers."</em></p><p>I use OpenDNS myself, and in addition to the added benefit of super-snappy DNS performance, the parental controls are a nice touch. Having it integrated at the router level is a great idea, as long as D-Link has improved their usually obscure router user interface. If they haven't, your average parent isn't going to be able to control the OpenDNS settings any easier than they could in the browser. Any other OpenDNS users out there?</p>

[freitasm]

In most cases OpenDNS slow down connections to CDN-based content, such as iTunes, Microsoft Windows Updates, Facebook, Twitter, etc.

What happens is that those CDN-based content providers will be using nodes in different locations, and the CDN providers will use geo-balanced DNS and/or anycast to make sure clients get to the nodes closer to them.

Some large ISPS actually have nodes inside their own network to reduce latency. For example our ISP has a Google cache server to reduce load times for HD videos.

When you use your ISP DNS your router or PC will resolve the servers to either a local node inside their own network or the closest one based in your location.

When using OpenDNS, Symantec DNS, GoogleDNS and others your router or PC will resolve an IP address sometimes close to the DNS server location, not your location. The result is added latency.

If your ISP uses a firewall that only allow responses if a request was issued from within its own network, you will see broken responses or responses that never arrive - you will know it's happening if you access Facebook and pictures won't load for example.

No, I don't use OpenDNS and anything else. The ms in resolving DNS is not improving speed, and it's cached on your router/PC after a while.

Of course you can use OpenDNS for its other features, such as the active filters for different types of content servers.

[Jason Dunn]

In most cases OpenDNS slow down connections to CDN-based content, such as iTunes, Microsoft Windows Updates, Facebook, Twitter, etc.

I did some tests where I downloaded an iTunes app with OpenDNS turned on, then off, and it was no faster using my ISPs DNS (and, yes, I did flushdns and all that jazz). YMMV, but for me it was no faster (which sucks, because whatever iTunes server I'm connecting to is SLOW).

[freitasm]

Probably you won't feel much speed difference if you are in Canada and the OpenDNS returns a CDN POP close to you in the same continent. It certainly feels different if you get a CDN POP on the other side of the world ;)

Still, if your ISP uses a stateful firewall or proxy then it could spell trouble even if it's on the same street.

Good for people who can use those resources though. I would use if I wanted DNS-bsased filtering of content as OpenDNS offers.