Symantec Corp recently unveiled a new initiative called Norton Everywhere that attempts to take Norton beyond the PC and extend trust to new devices and consumer applications. The initiative spans the areas of mobile safety, web safety across any device and embedded services on smart devices. A part of this initiative is Norton DNS, a new public DNS provider service.
For a long long time customers had to rely on the DNS servers their ISPs provided. No matter on which part of the world you live and which ISP you are connected to, these DNS servers were often slow. Customers had to wait agonizing seconds every time they click on a link as the DNS servers struggled to resolve the addresses requested by customers.
Most people were not aware what a DNS server was, much less know how to change them. The scenario changed when OpenDNS was launched. For the first time people had access to a really fast DNS server and everybody was happy. Then last year, Google Public DNS server was launched and I was relieved because it came without the annoying random site blocking that OpenDNS was prone to, and was easier to use.
Today I’m relieved once again to find Norton DNS. Google already has too much information about me – I use their mail, their search, Google Reader and yes, their DNS server. They know who my contacts are, what I search and read, and what sites I browse. So disconnecting from Google DNS server was the first thing I did when I discovered Norton DNS.
Norton DNS is quite fast and as a Symantec spokesperson explains, “The Norton DNS service works by filtering the DNS requests that are automatically created when you visit a Web page to determine if they are associated with fraud, spyware, malware or objectionable content such as pornography or violence."
That’s another layer of security.
To use Norton DNS servers, just change your servers to these addresses:
198.153.192.1 and 198.153.194.1
Detailed instructions on how to set DNS servers for your operating system is provided here.
«Today I’m relieved once again to find Norton DNS. Google already has too much information about me – I use their mail, their search, Google Reader and yes, their DNS server. They know who my contacts are, what I search and read, and what sites I browse. So disconnecting from Google DNS server was the first thing I did when I discovered Norton DNS.»
…same for me! And these DNS seems fast too (2 days experience).
Example of blocked site with Symantec's DNS:
http://www.brothersoft.com/downloads/visual-trace-route.html