How to setup OpenDNS and Google DNS

When you type “www.google.com” and hit enter the computer asks the DNS server to translate this human-readable web address into a computer-readable number known as an IP address. This is the process through which a website gets loaded into your browser.

Usually Internet Service Provider(ISP) specifies the DNS Server address that we key into the browser network settings or the router. It however can slow your browsing speed as the time it takes to locate the website depends on its cache memory.

OpenDNS can do this job more efficiently and speeds up your Internet connection, it’s very easy to set up and it’s free– $0.

Similar to OpenDNS, Google recently launched their own public DNS service.

How to setup Google DNS :

1. Go to your Network Settings.

Network settings

2. Network Connections.

3. Properties

Network and IPV4

4. Select Internet Protocol Version 4 (TCP/IPv4), followed by Properties and them replace the IP addresses of your Preferred DNS server and Alternate DNS server.

IPV4

For OpenDNS:

Replace the IP addresses of your Preferred DNS server and Alternate DNS server to 208.67.222.222 and 208.67.220.220

default DNS

For Google DNS:

Preferred DNS server and Alternate DNS server should be set to 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4

This seamless process makes your internet browsing more fast and secure. OpenDNS servers have an advantage that they store the IP addresses of millions of websites in their cache so it would take less time to resolve your requests. OpenDNS also blocks phishing websites with data input from Phishtank.

OpenDNS also recognizes your typos. For instance, if you typed www.gogle.com, OpenDNS will automatically redirect it to www.google.com.

You can also block certain websites and set shortcuts.

For geeks, OpenDNS and Google DNS are two different things but for the normal user you can use either. However, being a Google fan I’d recommend Google DNS.

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