Domain Name System (DNS) helps in resolving a website address or URL to it’s IP address. Every URL has a unique IP. Since IP addresses (for example 192.168.0.1) are difficult to remember, we type a name such as google.com in the address bar of our internet explorer. The DNS system was developed to translate domain names which are more understandable by humans to IP addresses understandable by computers, as computers understand only numbers.

An Internet Service Provider (ISP) normally provides it’s own nameservers to translate URL’s to IP addresses. However there are other nameservers which are publicly available and can be safely used. These nameservers may even be better than the nameservers provided by your ISP. Find out below.

Open DNS helps in faster resolution of web pages and has some advanced features such as misspelling and phishing protection, correction and filtering. Open DNS can help in a faster browsing experience especially in opening pages which are not stored in the local cache of your computer. In addition, it also protects against phishing and corrects typos in web addresses. Access to malicious sites may also blocked by open DNS servers. DNS nameservers can also help in bypassing censorship by your ISP.

To use these nameservers, first go to “Start -> Run -> and type ‘ipconfig /flushdns’ ”
Then open your network settings and click on “TCP/IP” properties.
Enter the DNS Server address under “Use the following DNS server addresses”.

Here are the Public DNS nameservers that are available for public use.

Open DNS nameservers : (these may block malware and porn sites)
* 208.67.222.222 – resolver1.opendns.com
* 208.67.220.220 – resolver2.opendns.com
* 208.67.222.220
* 208.67.220.222

Google Public DNS nameserver : (no filter)
* 8.8.8.8
* 8.8.4.4

DNS Advantage : (these may block malware sites)
* 156.154.70.1 – rdns1.ultradns.net
* 156.154.71.1 – rdns2.ultradns.net

DNS Resolvers : (no filter)
* 205.210.42.205 – cache1.dnsresolvers.com)
* 64.68.200.200 – cache2.dnsresolvers.com)

Level 3 Communications :
* 4.2.2.6 – 4.2.2.5 – 4.2.2.4
* 4.2.2.3 – 4.2.2.2 – 4.2.2.1

Cabe & Wireless DNS-Server :
* 141.1.1.1 – cns1.cw.net