Phones, PDAs, and every other mobile device smaller than a laptop and bigger than an iPod Shuffle needs DNS for web browsing, among other things. With speedier networks, the mobile web is getting more and more useful…and speedy DNS makes the experience better. Frankly, I had forgotten this obvious use of OpenDNS, until we started seeing our users comment on websites devoted to mobile devices.

Thanks for the reminder!

Change your mobile to OpenDNS

Today, we added instructions about how to change DNS on your mobile device, with our first entries covering Windows Mobile and Palm OS 5 (Treo).

Help us provide more details

Mobile devices are even more numerous and diverse than routers, so I’d love your help in two areas.

First: let us know which other devices most need instructions for changing to OpenDNS. Please include carriers and countries, if informative.

Second: if you’d like to write instructions to share your personal knowledge, I’d welcome the assistance. Send instructions and/or screenshots to our contact email address or link to instructions in the comments here.

Note: I’m still working out how I might expense a Sony PSP so I can write up instructions about how to use OpenDNS on this (ahem) “productivity” device.

One week ago, OpenDNS opened up its free DNS service for everyone to use. It’s been a fun week, with lots of feedback. It’s great to be listening to customers, rather than predicting (guessing) what the reaction will be.

We’re reading everything and responding where possible. Probably still a few dozen of you who deserve an email response… it will come! Most of our public responses have been on individual blogs, to make sure the individual sees the response. David, our CEO, has been an active member of the NANOG and dns-operators mailing lists for years, and he’s contributed in those forums, too. We’ve heard from you over the phone, via email, via blog comment, in person and over IM (our team addresses are listed).

I’ve been flagging blog and media mentions on del.icio.us, and you can see the most recent 20 items listed in the OpenDNS press center. Or you can watch the del.icio.us page directly, if you prefer. Not every reference is positive. Fine… we learn a lot from listening to our critics. If we’ve missed a worthy reference, please bring it to my attention, either via email or even via a for:pencoyd tag in del.icio.us.

So far, we’ve been adding to our FAQ to address concerns and questions which we’ve seen come up in multiple places, whether blogs, articles, email or IM. If you haven’t read the FAQ in a while, take a look. It doesn’t shrink!

It might be more helpful for us to start responding on this blog, too. In the next few days, we’ll provide more details here about our identification of phishing sites, how we’re handling DNSBL and mail servers (hint: click on the new preferences link, top right of every page), our network buildout, additional stats and more.

Note: one of our favorites, a thorough review, with actual testing of the speed for that individual.

“Site-Lookup Service Foils Fraud” is Ryan Singel’s Wired News writeup about OpenDNS. Ryan and Kevin Poulsen, senior editor at Wired, publish 27BStroke6, a blog about security and privacy, so they grokked what we’re doing — putting some new intelligence into DNS.

Ulevitch’s seven-person startup is an attempt to revolutionize a layer of the internet’s architecture in order to clean its underbelly of scammers and spammers.

One important feature which is not yet available, but will be soon, is self-service control over the DNS settings. Ryan’s article, understandably, doesn’t mention this capability, since it’s not yet live.

The point? We’re going to put more control in your hands, so if you want to turn off features like typo correction or phishing prevention, you’ll be able to. Account management is the top priority now, to help demonstrate the power of control over your DNS. We think transparency and control will show you (not just tell) that we’re making the right choices. (UPDATE: July 17, 2006: try the preferences out. First step, with more to come. November 7, 2006: Set up an OpenDNS account.)

I encourage you to read the article for yourself. Having worked to explain what we do via our website, it’s rewarding to read an external description of OpenDNS that makes a lot of sense. Lots of people are reading the article and submitting excellent questions: we’ll be adding to the FAQ today.

I’m inspired by Simon Phipp’s post “Freedom to Leave” [via Tim Bray]. Simon’s talking about the openness of technology formats and standards, and reminds us all:

The fastest way to send early adopters packing is to make your cool new toy a roach motel.

Though we’re not about data formats, OpenDNS is against lock-in, too. We are asking you to choose OpenDNS, for various benefits. We’re confident that you’ll be happy with our DNS service. If you don’t agree, you’ll make another choice…and there’s nothing we could or would do to stop you.

DNS is easy to change (see for yourself), it’s under your control, and you have a choice.

P.S. I’ve felt this way before, though Simon (and others, like John Hagel) are more convincing.