Elliot wrote an interesting article on his ISP redirecting mistyped domains to a page selected by the ISP. In this case it appears to be the ISPs home page.
While I’m not here to discuss whether I think the practice is legitimate I am here to suggest a better solution for your DNS. Depending on how technical you are this might throw you a off a bit at first, but I assure you it is your DNS that poses the problem. By default most every user will use their ISPs DNS; however, it is not required and you have the ability to specify your own DNS servers. The only requirement is that you will need your own router, which at this point almost everyone already has.
Steps to setup OpenDNS
1. Register for an account
2. Enter the IP you are wanting to setup OpenDNS on. OpenDNS will detect this for you if it’s for the network you are on.
3. Login to your router admin and set your DNS severs to OpenDNS, which are 208.67.222.222, 208.67.220.220
4. Now you can setup your OpenDNS account for the features you are looking for.
When you login to your account you will see the settings available, such as Content Filtering, Customization, Stats and Logs(good for parents), and Advanced Settings.
Content Filtering
This allows you to filter out content that you don’t want to be available on your network, perhaps porn or malicious sites. I think this is a really useful tool if you’re a parent. How many devices do your Kids have these days that get internet? Trying to install filters on all of them is not realistic, so you with this you can just block it at the source.
Customization
This allows you to customize the different error pages both with text and a logo.
Open DNS Customization
Stats and Logs
This is another really cool feature as you can see what sites users on your networks are using.
Advanced Settings
There are 2 important parts of this section. The ability to update your dynamic IP automatically. Most users are on home networks which don’t have static IPs, so this will prevent you from having to manually update it. Another one, which I think is interesting for domainers is the “Domain Typos” section. Not only will it correct a “.ocm” typo, but it also specifically has a section for “.cm” corrections.
By turning this filter on, if you enter .cm at the end of a domain, the URL will be corrected to .com except for the known registered .cm domains. Important: you must enable typo correction for this feature to work.
It will be interesting to see how this type of feature effects the .cm. It’s already been widely criticized as a type extension which would only lead to the use of this and similar filters. That could lead to a devaluation of the extension.
OpenDNS Avanced Settings
