OpenDNS - a safer and faster DNS

When I completed the sign up process at A Small Orange the other day for my new hosting, at the bottom of the page, there was a brief blurb about OpenDNS. I’d never heard of it before, so I checked it out. After using it for a few days, I’m happy with it. Here’s a snippet from their site:

OpenDNS helps you navigate the Internet in a safer, faster, smarter and more reliable way. Our service is free and requires nothing to download. OpenDNS doesn’t replace your existing Internet connection, it just makes it better.

Here’s a link to their features page. If you’re interested in using their service, here’s their getting started page.

While the security features and the speed boosts that OpenDNS provides are all very cool, I think one of the coolest things they have is the CacheCheck. CacheCheck let’s you force OpenDNS to check the DNS servers for any given domain. If they’re not up-to-date, you can have OpenDNS update them on the fly. This is quite a bit different than how most DNS servers work: if they’re out of date, too bad. You have to wait for them to update. Granted, if someone isn’t using OpenDNS, they’ll still have to wait around for their ISP to update their DNS information. In other words, what are you waiting for? Set it up; it’s easy.