Easily Add OpenDNS To Your Router
OpenDNS is an incredible alternative to your ISP DNS server. Simply put DNS (Domain Name System) translates IP address to easy to remember hostname's. Not only will OpenDNS make your browsing faster, there are a lot of additional features provided by this free service.
OpenDNS is free with no software to install. It also has a bunch of features such as Phishing protection, Domain Blocking, Adult Site Blocking, Typo Correction, etc. If you are behind a router the easiest way to ensure every computer on your home network is using OpenDNS is to add it to your Router.
Open your web browser and go to your router's address. Usually it is 192.168.1.1 type in the user name and password to access administrator settings. For this example I am using a Linksys WRT54GS, yours maybe different but the entry is basically the same. Under basic setup find your routers static DNS settings. Type in 208.67.222.222 and 208.67.220.220 hit save and your done!
I highly recommend trying OpenDNS. I have been using it for over 6 months now, and in fact I forgot I was using it until I mistyped a URL and OpenDNS told me that I was accessing a shady site.
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I use OpenDNS too, and since I recently did a performance measurement test on OpenDNS, I thought I will leave a link to the results here for anyone who comes along:
http://blog.gadodia.net/opendns-performance-in-india/
@ Vaibhav … very cool article! Thanks for the informative info!
Won't work with my WRT54GX2. I have shut down my DHCP server and using static IP addresses for my networked machines. Of course the DCHP server section is where the static DNS options are. We just love illogical router options. How about instructions for working OpenDNS through that setup?
I need to start setting this up for the households in which I work that need good control & filtering for their kids.
Steve, you want to continue using your router's DHCP service to hand out IP, subnet, etc, you just need to tell it to hand out the open DNS IP addresses instead of the ISPs.
Steve — My router has an option that you might try if your router also supports this. That is to switch back to DHCP and then use address reservation. With address reservation, you can tell your router to always assign the same IP address based on the MAC address of the connecting workstation/server. The only downside of this is that if another server tries to grab a reserved address, my router assigns a random one when it shouldn't. But if all your workstations are well behaved, you'll have the equivalent of static IPs while still using DHCP. That should then allow you to assign a DNS.
Fantastic!
Thanks a lot for an informative article!