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A shame OpenDNS used to redirect me to some spam webpage every time I tried to resolve a domain that didn't exist--they earned a spot on my black list forever.

A shame OpenDNS used to redirect me to some spam webpage every time I tried to resolve a domain that didn't exist--they earned a spot on my black list forever. :(

eli 10y ago
They don't do that any more, for what it's worth. I think for a while that was the only revenue stream for what was otherwise a free service. https://www.opendns.com/no-more-ads/ https://www.opendns.com/no-more-ads/
davidu 10y ago
It's been years since we did that, and they were not spam pages, and easily able to opt-out.
- justinlardinois 10y ago
  That is not an appropriate tone for someone representing OpenDNS to take.
  - Macuyiko 10y ago
    Why not? It's blunt, but to the point, honest, and passionate. Who cares about tone?
    - netman21 10y ago
      And seems very appropriate for the founder of OpenDNS. Pretty authoritative.
    - justinlardinois 10y ago
      Because it's dismissive.
      - __jal 10y ago
        Everyone has preferences, I guess. I far prefer honest and curt to the kind of anodyne, contentless word-payloads pumped out by so many corporate communications departments. Say, generating corporate communications seems like a promising direction for neural networks. A Markov chain comes close...
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- nly 10y ago
  Well, the fact that people still remember goes to show what a truly terrible idea it really was and that it probably did permanent damage to your brand.
  - cookiecaper 10y ago
    I used OpenDNS for a long time. I eventually switched to Google DNS mostly because its IPs are shorter and easier to remember, and I didn't use any of the power user features for OpenDNS. I remember the page full of ads and to be honest I don't begrudge it. We all expect everything given to us for free these days, and then we don't even want the company to make money showing us an ad on the rare occasion that we mistype a URL. It's hard to get paid these days. Ironically, those unrealistic expectations are probably a significant factor in the growth of data mining and resell; how else is a free-to-use website that doesn't have any ads (or whose users mostly block ads) going to get paid? You may say "not my problem", but it affects you when you leave the company no option but to resell data on the behaviors they observe from you.
  - davidu 10y ago
    I'm not sure what metric you use to judge it as terrible. I thought it was great. 10,000 companies pay for my service today. 65 million people use my infrastructure today. Cisco bought the company for more than $650m. It continues to innovate on the decades old DNS in secure and useful ways. So let me know what part is terrible.
    - zhengyi13 10y ago
      The part where you repeated Verisign's mistake in breaking a fundamental protocol. NXDOMAIN. Kind of a thing, and important to protocols other than HTTP.
      - mentat 10y ago
        The point is that the company did just fine even having made a mistake. Ignoring that is just being difficult.
corobo 10y ago
This attitude only promotes the idea that "well we might as well just continue like this then". If you can never forgive a company for doing wrong when they've corrected themselves years ago and now have a track record of doing nothing else that's irked you then what's the point in them ever bothering to make the change? If what they do is useful to you but have a feature or bug or something else you don't like then you absolutely should forgive them if they then fix that feature or bug to work in a way you like. They may as well never bother fixing things if they can never be forgiven after repenting their internet sins. If you've since found something that does do what you want then fair play, fill your boots. Otherwise you're being petty for the sake of being petty.
- conatico 10y ago
  I remember trying OpenDNS in 2008 and seeing that, and yes, I found it such a shady tactic that, taking into account Google DNS exists, I will probably never give a second chance to OpenDNS.

A shame OpenDNS used to redirect me to some spam webpage every time I tried to resolve a domain that didn't exist--they earned a spot on my black list forever. :(

eli 10y ago

They don't do that any more, for what it's worth. I think for a while that was the only revenue stream for what was otherwise a free service. https://www.opendns.com/no-more-ads/ https://www.opendns.com/no-more-ads/

davidu 10y ago

It's been years since we did that, and they were not spam pages, and easily able to opt-out.

justinlardinois 10y ago
That is not an appropriate tone for someone representing OpenDNS to take.
- Macuyiko 10y ago
  Why not? It's blunt, but to the point, honest, and passionate. Who cares about tone?
  - netman21 10y ago
    And seems very appropriate for the founder of OpenDNS. Pretty authoritative.
  - justinlardinois 10y ago
    Because it's dismissive.
    - __jal 10y ago
      Everyone has preferences, I guess. I far prefer honest and curt to the kind of anodyne, contentless word-payloads pumped out by so many corporate communications departments. Say, generating corporate communications seems like a promising direction for neural networks. A Markov chain comes close...
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
nly 10y ago
Well, the fact that people still remember goes to show what a truly terrible idea it really was and that it probably did permanent damage to your brand.
- cookiecaper 10y ago
  I used OpenDNS for a long time. I eventually switched to Google DNS mostly because its IPs are shorter and easier to remember, and I didn't use any of the power user features for OpenDNS. I remember the page full of ads and to be honest I don't begrudge it. We all expect everything given to us for free these days, and then we don't even want the company to make money showing us an ad on the rare occasion that we mistype a URL. It's hard to get paid these days. Ironically, those unrealistic expectations are probably a significant factor in the growth of data mining and resell; how else is a free-to-use website that doesn't have any ads (or whose users mostly block ads) going to get paid? You may say "not my problem", but it affects you when you leave the company no option but to resell data on the behaviors they observe from you.
- davidu 10y ago
  I'm not sure what metric you use to judge it as terrible. I thought it was great. 10,000 companies pay for my service today. 65 million people use my infrastructure today. Cisco bought the company for more than $650m. It continues to innovate on the decades old DNS in secure and useful ways. So let me know what part is terrible.
  - zhengyi13 10y ago
    The part where you repeated Verisign's mistake in breaking a fundamental protocol. NXDOMAIN. Kind of a thing, and important to protocols other than HTTP.
    - mentat 10y ago
      The point is that the company did just fine even having made a mistake. Ignoring that is just being difficult.

corobo 10y ago

This attitude only promotes the idea that "well we might as well just continue like this then". If you can never forgive a company for doing wrong when they've corrected themselves years ago and now have a track record of doing nothing else that's irked you then what's the point in them ever bothering to make the change? If what they do is useful to you but have a feature or bug or something else you don't like then you absolutely should forgive them if they then fix that feature or bug to work in a way you like. They may as well never bother fixing things if they can never be forgiven after repenting their internet sins. If you've since found something that does do what you want then fair play, fill your boots. Otherwise you're being petty for the sake of being petty.

conatico 10y ago
I remember trying OpenDNS in 2008 and seeing that, and yes, I found it such a shady tactic that, taking into account Google DNS exists, I will probably never give a second chance to OpenDNS.