In the latest edition of ‘send Neil cool stuff in return for a blog post’, OpenDNS sent me some stickers, a bottle opener and some Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups (which aren’t normally sold in the UK) as a prize for following them on Twitter (@opendns).
I’ve been using OpenDNS almost since it started 4 years ago. For those unfamiliar, DNS is the system that translates address like www.example.com into numerical addresses that your computer understands; while all internet service providers will have their own DNS servers, OpenDNS has introduced various innovations to make using the internet a more pleasant experience.
OpenDNS aims to be faster than your ISP’s own servers, and has phishing protection, a caching system to help you access web sites when their DNS systems are not working, and content filtering. Best of all, it’s free and doesn’t necessarily need any software installing.
While other competing services have launched since 2006, I personally believe that OpenDNS is still the best. No wonder, according to its statistics, it handles around 1% of all internet users in the world.

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