OpenDNS is evil

Submitted by David on Tue, 2009-12-29 23:27

At the moment my internet connection is defaulting to use OpenDNS servers, but they've been annoying enough for me to dig around in the settings to find out how to hardcode alternate DNS servers.

Why the annoyance? I keep getting messages like this one found in the OpenDNS forums:

For the past few weeks, I've been getting this error for about 60% of the websites I visit. Other DNS providers can resolve the domains fine, it seems OpenDNS is the one having issues..

"Hmm, isn't loading right now.

... (As a sidenote, it seems to happen to a domain for about 20 minutes, then the domain is fine for a day or so, then it happens again.)

Hijacking DNS requests to redirect to an OpenDNS page, instead of simply failing to respond to them is simply unacceptable. And, since I've never had similar, repeated problems with any DNS server I've used, I feel quite free to blame OpenDNS. But with alternate DNS server hardcoded, things are now working normally again.

Comments

Ronik

Wed, 2009-12-30 04:01

Considering I've been using the OpenDNS for the past... oh... 3 years without a problem, at least one that I could connect to OpenDNS... I have utterly no idea what you are talking about. I repeat, I have never knowingly had a problem with OpenDNS, EVER. Even when our internet went down, and you might think you could blame the DNS servers, I swapped over to the 'old' Shaw DNS servers.... and nothing changed. But I do believe I had a good reason for swapping to OpenDNS in the first place so I've swapped to it.

As far as the ... messing with the ... lack of a result, why complain? Instead of a simple 404 error, or no connection, or whatever, it actually links you to something which can diagnose the problem? Why go with a blank screen over a more explanatory screen which gives an option to troubleshoot, seriously, why?

David

Wed, 2009-12-30 14:33

(a) It's only OpenDNS that seems to exhibit the problem, and it's been a repeated problem

(b) Hijacking results breaks standard tools so that they can put up ads on the resulting pages.

David

Wed, 2009-12-30 17:28

Oh, and OpenDNS also messes up localization.

e.g. Facebook login comes in some bizarre language ("Facebook ?? ?????? ?? ????? ? ???????? ?? ??????? ?? ????? ?? ?? ?????.")

Ronik

Thu, 2009-12-31 04:06

A) Seen no problems, as I said.
B) Seen no ads, could be cuz i use adblock, and what standard tools? I generally/always do use OpenDNS, but I recall no other tools via IE, MF.
Unspoken C) No localization problems, Facebook included is perfectly fine. Are you using windows when you try it? It could be an issue with Linux together with OpenDNS, and since you researched changing DNS servers, and the Router uses the same DNS servers, I'm assuming that you ARE using Linux.

David

Thu, 2009-12-31 04:15

Actually it was most recently under Windows when I saw those localization problems.

Generally speaking if you want to determine whether a web site is working or not, a lot of the tools that do so will try to look it up and/or connect to it. With OpenDNS performing like this these tools will get a false negative. Or, if these pages use Ajax, the pages will "succeed" in refreshing themselves and any changes that you made (and/or your position in the application) are lost.

David

Thu, 2009-12-31 04:18

Oh, and the problem just repeated itself using Google Reader (with the www.google.ca domain name)... hijacking a secure connection, and leading to certificate errors. Sounds like something that you don't want to have happening with secured connections - and which might (legitimately) lead people to being hesitant in making ecommerce transactions.

David

Thu, 2009-12-31 04:29

Oh, and that time I was using a mac