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November 1, 2006, 2:26 pm
A Faster Web–for Free
Is it just me, or are the freebies starting to blossom once again on the Web? Feels like it’s 1999 all over again.
I’ve got yet another great free one for you today, and it’s a doozie. I read about it in PC World, and couldn’t believe it: a service that purports to speed up your broadband Internet connection. It’s called Open DNS.
Works great, at least for me. Once I plugged the Open DNS addresses into my router, the wait time for a complex Web page went from 3-4 seconds down to 1-2, on both my Macs and PC’s.
In short, Open DNS works by caching a key phase of Web-page requests (namely, DNS requests) from its thousands of users, so that the site you want is blasted to you in a fraction of a second.
There’s no fee, no software to install, you don’t give them any information about yourself, and you don’t have to do anything different once you change your router’s DNS server addresses. (Sounds technical, but the site walks you through the instructions.) As a bonus, Open DNS intercepts phishing scams and corrects Web-address typos, sparing you those headaches. (The typo-correcting feature is where Open DNS plans to make its money; read the site to learn the whole plan.)
My wife and I are totally loving the new speed. Don’t tell Open DNS, but we even would have paid for it.
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It is quite an old piece of news but believe me, it works. When someone like David Pogue says something, you should listen to it carefully. I just configured my Mac as the site asked me to (it is dead simple) and I have indeed noticed a very visible increase in speed, specially for the famous sites. I have always scoffed at such measures of increasing the speed of your Internet connection, and I will continue to do so. But this method will not increase the speed of your connection but will help you get the most out of it, and that's a good thing indeed.
I hope everyone and his brother checks out this service. Please post your opinions! Did you feel an increase in the speed of your browsing?
I ran a search for "open dns faster" and I got 998 results, the top most being about the release of the latest version of Ubuntu Linux. Cool! The guys behind vBulletin have done an awesome job with the search feature.
November 1, 2006, 2:26 pm
A Faster Web–for Free
Is it just me, or are the freebies starting to blossom once again on the Web? Feels like it’s 1999 all over again.
I’ve got yet another great free one for you today, and it’s a doozie. I read about it in PC World, and couldn’t believe it: a service that purports to speed up your broadband Internet connection. It’s called Open DNS.
Works great, at least for me. Once I plugged the Open DNS addresses into my router, the wait time for a complex Web page went from 3-4 seconds down to 1-2, on both my Macs and PC’s.
In short, Open DNS works by caching a key phase of Web-page requests (namely, DNS requests) from its thousands of users, so that the site you want is blasted to you in a fraction of a second.
There’s no fee, no software to install, you don’t give them any information about yourself, and you don’t have to do anything different once you change your router’s DNS server addresses. (Sounds technical, but the site walks you through the instructions.) As a bonus, Open DNS intercepts phishing scams and corrects Web-address typos, sparing you those headaches. (The typo-correcting feature is where Open DNS plans to make its money; read the site to learn the whole plan.)
My wife and I are totally loving the new speed. Don’t tell Open DNS, but we even would have paid for it.
_________________________________________________________________
It is quite an old piece of news but believe me, it works. When someone like David Pogue says something, you should listen to it carefully. I just configured my Mac as the site asked me to (it is dead simple) and I have indeed noticed a very visible increase in speed, specially for the famous sites. I have always scoffed at such measures of increasing the speed of your Internet connection, and I will continue to do so. But this method will not increase the speed of your connection but will help you get the most out of it, and that's a good thing indeed.
I hope everyone and his brother checks out this service. Please post your opinions! Did you feel an increase in the speed of your browsing?
I ran a search for "open dns faster" and I got 998 results, the top most being about the release of the latest version of Ubuntu Linux. Cool! The guys behind vBulletin have done an awesome job with the search feature.
