[SATLUG] Home DNS Caching

[Robert Pearson]

On 8/3/07, Sean Carolan <scarolan at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 8/3/07, David Power <dpower at hal-pc.org> wrote:
> > I switched to OpenDns.com a while back which fulfills the need without
> > having to run another box, its free and much faster than my ISP's.
> >
> I don't the OpenDNS typosquatting.  Personally I'm opposed to the idea
> of my DNS server filtering my queries.  Paul Vixie has some
> interesting comments on opendns:
>
> http://lists.oarci.net/pipermail/dns-operations/2006-July/000806.html
> --

I asked this list, and others, about OpenDNS after reading an article
listing it as one of the top 25 Web sites to watch of 2007.
The original PC World article:
"25 Web Sites to Watch"
<<http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,132787-page,3-c,internetnetworking/article.html#opendns>>
[article excerpt]
"OpenDNS
One reason the Web sometimes feels poky, even when you use broadband,
is the Internet's Domain Name System. When you type a URL (such as
www.pcworld.com) into your browser, DNS servers must translate that
alphanumeric information into a numeric IP address (such as
70.42.185.10) that Web servers and your PC can understand. Typically
your ISP's DNS servers handle the translation work.
But OpenDNS speeds up the translation (called "name resolution") by
handling the process on its own high-speed DNS servers. The service
includes other cool time-savers, as well, such as the ability to
create keyboard shortcuts. For example, instead of typing
www.pcworld.com each time, you might arrange to type in the letter p
and jump immediately to your favorite online destination."
[end excerpt]

I used it for about two weeks and then it did the "typosquatting"
thing on a Web site that was not misspelled by me but was unavailable.
The site OpenDNS put me on was a clear fraud as mentioned in the
article above from Sean Carolan.
I removed OpenDNS.

OpenDNS was faster than my ISP DNS by far.
About 70% of the people replied favorably to my question about using it.

I am now looking at building my own DNS server.
My preference would be to install DD-WRT in a Linksys router to use.
This method can be more difficult to get working for novices like me
than installing on a regular machine.
What do people do for DNS services on their laptop when off the home network?
Leave their DNS server on all the time?