

OpenDNS also provides optional website filtering. If your ISP’s DNS servers are fast and you’re located a long way from OpenDNS or Google DNS’s servers, you may see slower DNS resolves than when using your ISP’s DNS server. However, the actual speed differences you see will vary depending on how far you are from the third-party DNS servers and how fast your ISP’s DNS servers are. In some cases, these DNS servers may provide you with faster DNS resolves-speeding up your connection the first time you connect to a domain name. This malicious DNS server can then point popular websites to different IP addresses, which could be run by scammers.įor example, when you connect to while using your Internet service provider’s legitimate DNS server, the DNS server will respond with the actual IP address of Facebook’s servers. Some viruses and other malware programs can change your default DNS server to a DNS server run by a malicious organization or scammer. Once your computer has determined the IP address associated with a domain name, it will remember that for a period of time, which improves connection speed by skipping the DNS request phase. If you’re behind a router, your computer may be using the router itself as its DNS server, but the router is forwarding requests to your ISP’s DNS servers.Ĭomputers cache DNS responses locally, so the DNS request doesn’t happen every single time you connect to a particular domain name that you’ve already visited. The DNS servers you use are likely provided by your Internet service provider (ISP). Your computer then connects to the IP address and retrieves the right web page for you. When you type a domain name into your browser, your computer contacts your current DNS server and asks what IP address is associated with the domain name. DNS ServersĭNS servers match domain names to their associated IP addresses. Like a phone book, DNS matches human-readable names to numbers that machines can more easily understand. DNS is often explained as being like a phone book, where you look up someone’s name and the book gives you their phone number. IP addresses are also known to change, but the DNS servers keep up with that new information. We use instead of 172.217.0.142 because addresses like are more meaningful and easier for us to remember. If you typed this number into your web browser’s address bar, you’d also end up at Google’s website. One of the IP addresses used by is 172.217.0.142. Behind the scenes, the Internet and other networks use numerical IP addresses. However, your computer doesn’t understand where “” is. If you want to visit Google, you just need to enter into your web browser’s address bar. Domain names are the human-readable website addresses we use every day.
