Many people nowadays are switching from their ISP’s DNS to alternative services, like: OpenDNS and Google Public DNS, just to name a few. A lot of these alternative services offer faster resolution to our DNS requests, which that translate to faster internet browsing experience, plus additional features, like the ones that OpenDNS offers: content filter, phishing protection and many more. When you switch to a different DNS service, most companies will give you two IP addresses that you have to configure manually in your computer or router, depending on your configuration, and that is all. Now, you could ask yourself: “Ok, I switched, this DNS is faster, but what happens if the service goes down?”. A lot of DNS services may tell you that they are the best on the business, that they have a great data center and many servers to fail over if something goes wrong, but… the matter of the fact is that no one can really guarantee 100% up time. The service could go down from time to time. Because of this, I think that we can avoid losing temporary service by using two DNS services instead of one. So, how do we do this? Easy, instead of just choosing one service, choose two DNS services (e.g. OpenDNS & Google Public DNS) and grab only one DNS IP address from each service and configure them in your computer or router. Now, if for any reason the DNS service goes down, you still have another service to backup you up and continue browsing the internet without any interruption. To give you an idea, here are some examples: OpenDNS IP addresses:
DNS 1: 208.67.222.222 DNS 2: 208.67.220.220
OpenDNS website And Google Public DNS IP addresses:
DNS 1: 8.8.8.8 DNS 2: 8.8.4.4
Google Public DNS website You could try something like this in your configuration:
OpenDNS as DNS 1: 208.67.220.220 Google Public DNS as DNS 2: 8.8.4.4
Or
Google Public DNS as DNS 2: 8.8.8.8 OpenDNS as DNS 1: 208.67.222.222
You should play with the Domain Name System settings to see which configuration works best for you.
Changing DNS settings in Windows
To manually configure DNS settings in Windows 7 follow these steps:
Changing DNS settings in a router
In most case, the steps to configure your router should be something like this:
You should read this article What is Domain Name System (DNS) if you need a better understanding on DNS. All content on this site is provided with no warranties, express or implied. Use any information at your own risk. Always backup of your device and files before making any changes. Privacy policy info.
