Virgin Media DNS vs Open DNS: Update

It is a few months now since I changed the DNS server I use from the standard Virgin Media DNS to the one serviced by OpenDNS.  It is now time for an update.

Using Open DNS has been a breeze. I have noticed very little difference in the speed at which web pages loaded but to be honest I didn't really expect to see much difference.  What has been really useful is the on-the-fly spelling correction.  Even though I can pretty much touch type, I still hit a variety of common mistakes, especially when I am in a hurry and not paying attention.  Most of these are caught by Open DNS and redirected to the intended site. The anti-phishing solution is also pretty nifty, although less frequently used as I can generally spot phishing.

I did however run into a little problem with Virgin Media when I last complained about my internet speed.  They were adamant that it would be Open DNS causing the slow down, but in a little over the phone experiment, Open DNS beat their own DNS servers, by a fraction.  Although not really enough to call it a clear winner it was a sign of connection issues not DNS issues.  To be fair with Virgin, other suppliers may have insisted that I not use Open DNS but they didn't (or maybe they would if their technical support team found out what DNS is!).