Browse the Web Faster With OpenDNS

Posted by Justin in Tuesday, April 21st 2009

Did you know that every time you type in a web address into your browser, your browser has to turn the web address (ie. www.google.com) into an IP address of the server hosting the site in order to download the web page and other files? The system used by Windows to complete this task is a domain name system, or DNS. Each internet service provider has a DNS server that it uses to provide its users the domain to IP look-up capabilities necessary to browse the web. By default, Windows looks to your service provider’s DNS server for this information.

The problem that this creates is that not all DNS servers were created equal. Depending on your provider, the performance of its DNS resolving server may be slowing down your browsing speed. No matter how much bandwidth your connection has, a slow DNS server will hold up the loading of each page as your browser waits for the correct IP address. This can sometimes slow down the loading time of a page by a few seconds, especially if your DNS server is overloaded.

That’s where OpenDNS comes to the rescue! OpenDNS offers free DNS servers that anyone can use, regardless of your service provider. OpenDNS has extremely fast and reliable servers which can often be a great improvement over your ISP’s servers. Many users have found that using the OpenDNS servers greatly increased the speed of web browsing and the loading time for web pages.

Setting your Windows PC up to use the OpenDNS servers instead of those provided by your ISP is easy to do.

Open the Start Menu and type ncpa.cpl (Vista) or select Run, then type ncpa.cpl (XP)
Find the icon for your current network connection, right-click and choose Properties
On the Networking tab, find and select the Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) and hit Properties. If you are using Vista, you will select Internet Protocol Version 4
On the General tab select the option labeled “Use the following DNS server addresses:”
Enter the DNS server addresses for the OpenDNS servers 208.67.222.222 and 208.67.220.220 (These can also be found here)
Hit OK and you’re all set!