Tier 2 list

Applications IP Networking
1

SOLVED

May someone give me a hint, or got experience about using as default dns one of the so called TIER 2 list?

OpenNIC Wiki: Public Access (Tier-2) DNS Servers

Or otherwise uses the google ns 8.8.8.8 or the 8.8.4.4?
thanks in advance

2

DNS is a distributed and hierarchical database: and whereever there is a hierarchy you need to have one (or several) "roots". These are the "tier-1-servers". To prevent flooding them with requests (which would make the DNS system slow overall) many organisations (including Google) have built "tier-2-servers" and offer their services to the public in various ways:

there are companies like OpenDNS which create some revenue redirecting you to a site they get money from under certain circumstances (like "host not found", etc.)

there are companies like Google which seemingly offer their service without any payment but they keep your DNS requests in a database and so over time know your surfing habits, which is marketable information

there are companies trying to restrict what you should see by denying name resolution for sites they think you should not see. Many of the DNS servers ISPs offer fall into this category but also Norton ConnectSafe and many other "safe" installments (note: "safe" just means "arbitrarily incomplete")

In light of this i suggest to use two nameservers from two different providers and only use providers which do not filter anything. My personal opinion is that i know best what i should see and if a website doesn't fall into that category i just avoid it. Seeing something i do not want to see for as long as it takes me to decide that won't kill me.

I use "censurfridns.dk" ( 89.233.43.71, 91.239.100.100), which is located in Denmark and it works to satisfaction. There are similar services in Austria ("FreeDNS", 37.235.1.174, 37.235.1.177) and probably some others you might find.

I hope this helps.

bakunin

3

You could also run your own DNS or pure caching DNS locally and point to that. Just saying.

With bandwidth what it is today, might not be as big of a gain as this once was. In other words you may get better performance hitting something over your Internet connection, but it all depends....

Running your own may give you greater confidence that the DNS server will always be there responding... (maybe).

4

@bakunin, thanks a lot for the hint at what level they are. Sure a user should be aware where to surf or not.
@cjcox, I probably won't run my own DNS for several reasons. But for others who may want to try it, get yacy. I was about to have a second source to get on the net.