What is OpenDNS and How to Setup in Windows?

All the resources on the internet including your PC, servers and domains of websites are identified by a unique number like 192.200.63.147 called the IP address. However, you don’t have to know or remember the IP address of every site you want to visit. You just type the URL of the website, and your computer requests the IP of the address from the DNS to load the site you want to visit. Simply put, the DNS (Domain Name Service) is a background part of the internet that translates the human-friendly address into a machine-readable numeric IP address.

Normally, your ISP provides the DNS server that we enter in the router or browser networks settings. Sometimes the DNS server specified by your ISP may be slow, thus leading to slow loading of website pages. To resolve this issue, you can use a free yet more reliable alternative called OpenDNS in place of the ISP DNS service.

What is OpenDNS?

OpenDNS is a free service that separates your DNS operations from the ISP specified system to provide more reliable, safer and faster internet access. OpenDNS connects to high-performance DNS serves and stores the IPs of millions of sites in a cache to reduce the time it takes to resolve your requests. Setting up OpenDNS on your network or individual PC/Android device is simple and free. You just need to configure device/router settings without any additional software.

Related: How to setup Google Public DNS?

Benefits of Using OpenDNS

Apart from giving you more reliable and faster internet access, using OpenDNS has more benefits. These include:

1. Content Filtering

The service prevents access to inappropriate websites thus keeping you safe from malware and virus infection. The service allows you to set custom filters levels ranging from ‘High’ to ‘None’ by ticking the appropriate boxes. This makes is a great parental controls tool that you can use to set off-limits sites for the kids.

2. Phishing Protection

OpenDNS uses Phish Tank, a reputable phishing database technology to safeguard you against scammers on the Internet. The service warns you when you are about to visit a phishing website and blocks access to such sites.

3. Shortcuts

The OpenDNS shortcut utility enables you to assign shortcuts to lengthy website address to help you access the sites without having to type the entire address.

4. Typo Suggestions and Corrections

The feature offers the spelling suggestions in case you mistype the address of a site and when the service can figure out the correct site, it corrects the typo automatically.

How to Change OpenDNS in Windows?

Whether you are using a Windows or an Android device to access the internet, you can tweak the network settings to start using the OpenDNS service. If you are browsing from a Windows 10 device, you can change the DNS from the network adaptor settings.

• Open the Control Panel, go to the “Network and Internet” option and open the “Network and Sharing Centre”.

• Click the “Change adapter settings” link at the left panel of the window.

• Double click the connection that you are currently connected to, to open the network connection properties.

• This will open a new pop-up window. Click the “Properties” button at the bottom of the new pop-up.

• Under the “Network” tab of the resulting window, double click the “Internet Protocol Version 4 (TCP/IPv4)” from the list of items that the connection uses.

• This will open yet another pop-up window. Go to the second section under the general tab and click the radio button for “Use the following DNS server addresses” to enable the option.
• For the preferred server, type ‘208.67.222.222’ and ‘208.67.220.220’ for the alternative server and then click the “Ok” button.

• Now you have successfully changed the DNS in your Windows PC.

Conclusion

You may experience slow internet connection depending on the performance of the DNS server specified by your ISP. However, if your ISP’s DNS turns to be unreliably slow, you can shift to OpenDNS, a free DNS service that gives you safer and reliable internet access. Moreover, OpenDNS offers more features including content filtering and protection against malicious attacks, giving you and better online experience. You can use the above method to change the DNS of your Windows 10 device and forget the annoying internet outages.