Opendns And Torrents

[CosmicSurfer]

What's the Skinny???

Does 'OpenDNS' really work to speed up connection speed and Torrent downloads???

Perplexed by conflicting Google info,

CS

[jeffer]

I thought the reason for using OpenDNS was to help when people have trouble with websites not opening or being slow to open. I wasn't aware it had any effect on downloads.

[NHJ]

of course it doesn't, opendns is simply a "index" containing translation from name to ip adress, nothing more.

[Cuban]

> "Does 'OpenDNS' really work to speed up connection speed and Torrent downloads???"

No. Torrent tracking servers use IP address directly there is no need to carry out a reverse look-up to find the domain names of the IP address that the torrent server says has the file that you are seeking.

Many torrent sites will have an FAQ on how the whole process works and write up on the history of the application, reading through one of those FAQs would probably equip you with the facts as they affect your situation.

The use of Open DNS benifits those that have a 'poor' DNS service offered by their ISP. It aids the finding of IP addresses when given a domain name. EG I want to see the Google Home page, I type 'www.google.com' into the address bar, my request is handled by Open DNS servers and my browser gets told that it should attempt to connect to the web host at the IP address 208.67.219.230, it does so and I see the Google home page. I then realise that I meant to do a Thai search so change the ".com" to ".co.th" and press <enter>, the DNS server offers the new IP address 208.67.219.231 and I see the Thai version of the site.

I use uTorrent, on the "Peers" tab it offers to do a reverse look-up on IP addresses of the peers from which you are leeching, I see I'm taking data from the US, UK and The Netherlands for one of my files. Resolving the domain that they are on just tells me who their ISP is and sometimes details about their connection, it is academic interest and to those looking to build legal cases on the subject of file 'sharing'. Not related to whether use use Open DNS or not.

[livinthailandos]

I didn't see anyone mention this on here so I thought I would simply add this on for OpenDNS, if you guys are easily aware of rerouting someone to a fake page using your ISP's DNS Servers then you know why at least using OpenDNS is better if not check out doxpara that checks your ISP DNS for being secure or not. I remember last year an article showing how most ISP DNS could easily be taken over. If nothing more at least using OpenDNS at least gives a little added security considering how everything is.

[Crushdepth]

OpenDNS should make your web surfing a bit *slower* compared to a well-functioning local DNS server in Thailand, because the lookups will take a bit longer. However, it is more *reliable* and also secure. And given that most DNS servers in Thailand aren't well-functioning (time outs and crap outs), OpenDNS may end up being faster after all.

Personally I can't be bothered messing around changing DNS servers to find one that works all the time. So I just use OpenDNS and forget about it. DNS in Thailand is amazingly bad.

Edited March 6, 2009 by Crushdepth