OpenDNS Phases Out Redirection To Guide 90
First time accepted submitter Jim Efaw (3484) writes "Tired of the OpenDNS Guide surprise from website-unavailable.com when you go to an old link or a typo from some ISPs? Relief is at hand: On June 6, 2014, OpenDNS will stop redirecting dead hostnames to Guide and its ads; the OpenDNS Guide itself will shut down sometime afterwards. OpenDNS nameservers will start returning normal NXDOMAIN and SERVFAIL messages instead. Phishing protection and optional parental controls will still stay in place."
If you read in between the lines (Score:2, Insightful)
"We can make enough money from selling your IP and the domains you look up."
Just like (Score:5, Insightful)
The _behavior_ of redirecting failed DNS lookups to an advertising server is unsurprising. Roughly 10 years ago, Verisign did much the same thing to to the master servers for *.com', and broke the concept of getting a "no such record" result for everyone in the world using ".com" addresses.
http://slashdot.org/story/03/0... [slashdot.org]
Many, many people were _extremely_ upset when this unannounced change occurred. It broke tools worldwide that were used to verify DNS configuraitons, and it routed email that was misspelled or had faild DNS to Verizon's advertising DNS IP addresses. I was never sure if Verisign bothered to do anything with all the DNS connection requests, FTP requests, SSH requests, or everyehing else redirected to their sites, but it left Verisign in charge of a tremendous amount of data and potential network manipulation.
People, and software, have become more accustomed to such DNS abuse. But it's still problematic if you don't realize it's going on.
Re: If you read in between the lines (Score:5, Insightful)
What are you talking about? You might not have like the ads, but we never lied about anything. Our service was super clear about how it worked. And for those who didn't like the redirection, it has always been possible to create an account and disable that part of the service.
Re:OpenDNS sucks less than everyone else (Score:2, Insightful)
Wow, I can't believe my original post got down-modded to a zero. Regardless, I'll clarify per your request.
Google is an advertising company that at-minimum aggregates, so I trust them less than OpenDNS with my DNS service. Simple as that. But especially since OpenDNS has made clear they are a security company and they don't want to mess with those profits, while advertising actually messes with the stated mission of theirs and they want to completely jettison it now, hence their recent changes made public now in the TFA.
I like OpenDNS as a free security service, and I like them even more for the recent changes they've made. There. I said it again. Mod away. I can handle it.
Disclaimer: I am only a user of their free DNS service, and have never registered with them.