Over the long weekend I made a change to our local network that has worked very well so far: switched the DNS from Comcast to OpenDNS. Some pages load faster and I’ve have found the shortcut functionality handy (pictured above).

Although you can do shortcuts with other programs (think a less powerful ActiveWords in the browser) the nice thing about OpenDNS is it works across every browser in every machine connected to the LAN so if I add a shortcut from the bedroom, I can use it on my tablet PC or my wife’s laptop or the Pocket PC WiFi.

Cut down long typing your favorite sites on the Wii
Yes, the shortcuts even work with no additional configuration necessary on the Wii and PS3 browsers!

One thing I’ve been disappointed in so far is the OpenDNS stats function. After 24 hours you are supposed to be able to see stats on total requests, top requests and unique domains. In our case it took more like 72 hours and what’s showing is a broken view with no data and a message that says: “not enough data has been collected yet.” As much as our family uses our LAN I’m finding it hard to believe not enough data has been collected.

How to add OpenDNS for free to your network
But enough of our family’s experience, how can you get your LAN into this?

STEP 1. Visit OpenDNS and click the Get Started tab.
STEP 2. Choose the router option and pick out the model of your router.
STEP 3. Login to your browser. In our case we have a Linksys router so it’s a matter of going to the browser and typing 192.168.1.1 and then entering our router password (and yes, we have changed the default factory password).
STEP 4. Before changing your router DNS settings, write the current settings down so you can revert when you no longer want to use OpenDNS. Then add the static OpenDNS DNS settings for:

208.67.222.222
208.67.220.220

STEP 5. Restart the router and computer (I didn’t need to restart our lone Vista box, but restarted the Windows XP) and visit:

welcome.opendns.com/

If everything went well then you should see the welcome to OpenDNS page. You can test the OpenDNS typo correction system with makeyougohmm.com by adding an extra ‘w’ like this:

wwww.makeyougohmm.com

STEP 6. Create an OpenDNS account. This will enable you to add shortcuts to the network.

STEP 7. Once logged in, click on the “Networks” link in the My Account section. From here you’ll need to add your IP address. You should see an option to add your current IP address.

Note: if you are on a dynamic IP then you’ll need to change the IP when your ISP changes. Cable companies like Comcast don’t change their dynamic IP addresses that often, so it’s not a big deal. OpenDNS offers an optional program that you can download and install on your computer that will detect when the IP address is changed and update this setting.

STEP 8. Start adding shortcuts! That’s it, these 8 steps take only a few minutes to execute.

What if I don’t want to change the router, only my computer DNS settings?
You can change the DNS used on a computer by computer basis if you want. OpenDNS provides instructions by machine on the getting started page.

In closing, adding OpenDNS to our LAN as the designated DNS has been a very positive move. Give it a try on your LAN and let me know what you think. If you have had a negative experience with OpenDNS — I’m particularly curious about how long the stats take to start showing some real data — let me know about that below as well.

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