Opendns

[Said Bakr]

Hi,

I think my computer has undiscovered adware. When I type a missed or unavailable website's URL such as www.saidbakr.com in the address bar of both IE 7 or FF 2.0.0.14 that installed on my computer's Windows XP SP2, the browser is redirected to the URL http://guide.opendns.com/?url=www.saidbakr.com .

I expect it to redirect to google's search or Page Not found of the browser. Also I noticed that my computer is slow down. I don't know what can I do?

The attached screenshot.gif demonstartes the situiation.

[honda12]

Hi,

I think my computer has undiscovered adware. When I type a missed or unavailable website's URL such as www.saidbakr.com in the address bar of both IE 7 or FF 2.0.0.14 that installed on my computer's Windows XP SP2, the browser is redirected to the URL http://guide.opendns.com/?url=www.saidbakr.com .

I expect it to redirect to google's search or Page Not found of the browser. Also I noticed that my computer is slow down. I don't know what can I do?

The attached screenshot.gif demonstartes the situiation.

Hi,

You are not infected! Opendns is free service that 'aims' to improve your internet experience.

There were complaints from people who used Opendns about your exact same problem:

(from wiki page:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opendns)

Privacy issues and covert redirection

While OpenDNS is currently a free service, people have complained about how the service handles failed requests. If a domain cannot be found, the service redirects you to a search page with search results and advertising provided by Yahoo. This can be switched off via the OpenDNS Control Panel [10].

There is also a large privacy concern about sharing your DNS requests with any third party. Normally DNS requests are handled by the ISP, which already has access to all of your data going upstream through your connection. When using OpenDNS, the DNS requests go though this new third party company, which exposes you to potential tracking of your web activity by the OpenDNS company.[2]

Covert redirection of search engine requests; A user's search requests sent to Google may be covertly redirected to a web server owned by OpenDNS without the user's consent.[11][12]This is done by returning false results to DNS lookups, so that, for example, a lookup of www.google.co.uk actually returns the address of a server google.navigation.opendns.com. This means that users' searches are potentially monitored by OpenDNS infrastructure.

As you can see, it seems that Opendns has redirected your google searches. Unfortunately, (as I don't actually use Opendns!) I don't know how to stop this!


honda

***

Resources:
Here is their website: http://www.opendns.com/
OpenDNS faqs: Is Opendns a search engine?
Opendns Forums: http://forums.opendns.com/

Contact OpenDNS: http://www.opendns.com/contact/

[Said Bakr]

Hi,
I think that spybot should deal with Opendns as an adware. I want to stop it but I'm like you, I can not stop it. Do you think uninstalling Google toolbar will stop it?

[honda12]

I agree and disagree. I agree that it is wrong that a company should be doing this, even if it is in their interests to do good. On the other hand, OpenDNS does offer some good features - some swear by it.

We have to consider if the pros outweigh the cons. But even if the pros outweigh the cons, it is no excuse for a company to be doing this! Hmm...

I have no idea if uninstalling google toolbar would make any difference. I wouldn't have thought so, because google toolbar uses the same search thingy! (I don't know what I'm talking about! )

[EC120]

Your computer's requests are resolved by DNS server. You have set OpenDNS on your router or directly in you connection TCP/IP properties. If you don't like it, simply use different DNS server. The redirect is supposed to help with the misspelled URLs. That can also be modified in OpenDNS control panel, so there is really no reason to complain, especially when the service is free and voluntary.
SpyBot can't stop OpenDNS since there is nothing to stop, there is no resident part on your computer. It is DNS.

[Said Bakr]

Hi,

My ISP supply me with the following two DNS :
208.67.222.222 and 208.67.220.220 which I set them in TCP/IP properties.

So can I understand that those two DNS are belongs to OpenDNS? so any unavailable domain is redirected by the DNS itself?

[EC120]

When you look at www.opendns.com/start, you see that your DNS servers match OpenDNS. So, YES.
Second question>>>
When requested domain does not exist, DNS server sends your browser a "Guide" page instead just showing generic browser error page. Info here.

More info about features you're getting here. I don't use an account, but you can register one to customize, get stats and lot of other stuff. Just read.

In case you find out you don't want to use OpenDNS for some reason, try some other server. Here is a short list.