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Since it is becoming increasingly common for internet service providers to 'mess' with their dns service (by resolving unknown names to ad pages, etc) or their service is just unreliable, please provide alternative dns servers that meet the following criteria:

  1. Reliable enough to provide low-latency responses
  2. Allow and/or encourage use 'outside' of the dns provider's own network
  3. DNS provider is know to be reputable (i.e. unlikely to provide malicious dns responses or become compromised)

For servers in your answer, please give the:

  1. IP
  2. name of the provider
  3. location(s) of the server(s) (i.e. Europe)
  4. nature of the service (free or pay/ad supported model such as with OpenDNS*, etc)

  5. (optional)Other features available.

    • Yes, I'm aware that OpenDNS also redirects 404's, among other things

This question provides some information on how to change the dns settings on your computer. You may also want to refer to the dns page for your home router if you have access.

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    Warning, you make a big confusion between lying DNS resolvers (Comcast, OpenDNS, etc) and 404 errors which are a HTTP feature, completely unrelated.
    – bortzmeyer
    Dec 17, 2009 at 13:29
  • Do note that such "open" recursive name servers are typically a bad idea, as explained in RFC 5358 "Preventing Use of Recursive Nameservers in Reflector Attacks"
    – bortzmeyer
    Dec 17, 2009 at 13:30
  • @bortzmeyer point taken, and updated.
    – Dana the Sane
    Jan 8, 2010 at 1:56

6 Answers 6

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Level3 provides four free DNS servers which I use whenever I can't rely on the local. They're 4.2.2.1, 4.2.2.2, 4.2.2.3, and 4.2.2.4. They also have the advantage for guys like me with bad memories that the IP addresses are easy to remember.

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    They are not officially supported by Level 3 and may disappear at any moment.
    – bortzmeyer
    Dec 17, 2009 at 13:28
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    A fan of OpenDNS, but can never remember the IPs! Have been using Level3 ones for the same reasons (bad memory), but recently switched to Google Public DNS as it's easier to remember and better supported/featured - 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4.
    – Shawn Chin
    Dec 21, 2009 at 12:01
  • Note that I believe Level 3 is discontinuing open access to these.
    – Dana the Sane
    Jan 8, 2010 at 1:54
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aside from the 4.2.2.x servers (which are great), there's always the option of running your own, either on a VM or on a physical system, within your own lan.

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There is a very good list maintained in resolv.conf format.

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I recommend just setting up your own DNS resolver at home. Leave it set to the default (to query the roots itself). Then point all your home computers to that resolver.

Upsides include the fact that you don't have to worry about unexpected random policy changes from a DNS provider.

Downsides are that you won't benefit from a shared cache (which can actually be a benefit since entries are less likely to be stale!). Also, increases the load on the root servers, however doing one resolver per home network is a good compromise between using someone else's caching server and having ALL of your individual machines do root resolution.

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I don't know how reliable or ad free they are going to be, but Google recently announced that they will be making public DNS servers available. See this posting.

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First run this Utility in Windows or Wine than use the sever best for you. Also you might want to run the DNS spoof-ability test from GRC.com as well.

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