Mobility has its limits, especially if your ISP prefers you use their DNS servers, but then does not want you to use their DNS servers from IPs that it does not own. What to do? Many tech geeks have ways of finding DNS servers they like, some use their own or DNS servers from their work, but your average home user probably wouldn’t know what to do. OpenDNS sounds like a nice idea to get free DNS use. In fact, it offers up some services that may be of limited (read: better than none) security in blocking phishing sites and doing some spelling correction (for commonly misspelled sites that take you places you’d rather not see). Sounds like a nice enough deal to try out. However, in reading their marketing material about being blazingly fast and such, its really just all talk. It is no faster-feeling than any other DNS server, really. I suppose, however, that this thing can be programmed to adjust ad-ware and spyware and even botnet DNS calls as well, helping to quell botnets and other malware from contacting dynamic home adresses.

The only thing to keep in mind is what this service’s business model is. It is a free service, but nothing is ever really free, no? Perhaps they gather statistics on DNS queries and sell that gathered information in creative ways. Perhaps they will be able to log your queries and better tailor things to you, such as crafted DNS queries much like Google puts relevant ads on gmail or based on various searches. Either way, there shouldn’t be too much “badness” involved in something like this, and even if there is, it is only IP address and DNS query badness. For someone like me who will use this on a laptop that roams around, I’ll end up fairly anonymous as it is.