ClearCloud London down - my day ruined

We can only hope that on a blocked website, both Clearcloud and Norton won't toss up their block page at the same time

 

Whoa, that would be dramatic!
Now I want to test that scenario...

Wondering... on a blocked page, does it revert to the alt server?

 

With my experience in dealing with these DNS servers, I'd certainly hope so. It would be my luck though that the website is on both block lists, lol. Test it out and see

 

Windows only uses the alternate DNS when the primary one times out.

 

Can't you set up more than 2 DNS server addresses in Windows?
Should work on XP, Vista, 7...

 

That should work fine unless a user has their DNS setup in their router. Mine only allows for a primary and 1 alternate.

 

These settings will override the router settings...

 

Ah good to know.

 

Thanks, never knew about that.

 

Now this is exactly what I love about Wilders.
I didn't know that either, J_L, but I'm set up that way now, with 4 DNS server addresses, in order of use.
Heck, I didn't even know about ClearCloud DNS and Norton DNS until I read it here at Wilders.

 

A entire day ruined because of an DNS service....

 

Something's wrong with your grammar there..

 

Now I wish it was down so I could test it Does that definitely work? If so, I'll set up machines as so from now on.

 

Tried Clearcloud for a while, was nice and fast, but sometimes blocks a bit too much. So, wanted to give Norton a try, entered the DNS adresses in my PC, and quite a lot of sites got blocked by my "content filter policy" which I never setup, I didn't even create an account for that. Judging from the number of sites blocked, it seems liked all categories were blocked. From what I read at their site, the filter is opt-in only and you need to create an account for it.
Anybody got this before?

 

Did you just try that on 31st March? As on that day, Norton screwed up their DNS service for some people (everyone?) with a content filtering problem. I had this problem too.
http://community.norton.com/t5/Other-Norton-Products/Norton-DNS-filtering-issue-resolved/td-p/425938
http://community.norton.com/t5/Other-Norton-Products/NDNS-filtering-policy-modified/td-p/425674

 

Put dummy IP addresses for 1 and 2 in the list (something like 255.255.255.255 & 255.255.255.254) and save it (OK all the dialogs, not just Advanced TCP/IP Settings). Prove that your browser no longer connects to web sites. Now add a real DNS server address as the third item and save it...

 

Heh, should have thought about that. Got CC IPs primary and Norton secondary, works great, thanks.

 

Exactly, elapsed's headache turned out to be very productive, we all learned something.

 

It's a shame, but it's to be expected when it's a beta.
This is why you don't use beta's on production pc's

 

That's the whole idea behind having a primary and alternate DNS IPs. If one doesn't work, Windows tries the next. Windows doesn't care if they're from the same company, DNS service, etc, only that they work. Windows has had the ability to use more than 2 DNS servers since at least 98FE. I originally switched to Open DNS because my ISPs DNS was unreliable. It went down quite regularly. Last year, I had trouble with Open DNS and trying to reach this forum, so I started using one DNS IP from Open DNS and one from my ISP. It works like it's supposed to.

This incident has very little to do with using a "beta" service and/or software on a PC. Unless you've stored all of the IPs you need in your hosts file, your PC is dependent on DNS servers, with or without any other services they offer. They can fail at any time for any reason from a server crash to government interference. An example from these forums:
https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=286671

 

Yup, I had to learn something from it so I asked for advice and got some, which will hopefully help others in future too.

 

Yeah, it works now

 

The same situation may happen if someone uses a 3G connection device. Unless the ISP software allows to add more than 2 DNS servers.

With the 3G connection devices, it's necessary to make all changes within the device's software, otherwise the changes won't apply.

One trick I found (I didn't test it yet... I just thought of it moments ago lol), without restricting the primary to ClearCloud and the alternate to Norton DNS (just as an example) is to have 2 connections, by giving them different names: Connection_1_CC and Connection_2_Norton (just examples of names that could be given). Obviously, for Connection_1_CC we'd be using CCs IPs, and for Connection_2_Norton, Norton DNS IPs.

This is not the perfect solution, because it would require terminating one connection and starting the other... but, unless your device's software allows you to add more than 2 DNS servers, or if you don't want to restrict to just one DNS server for CC or Norton DNS, then it's the best option I could find so far.

Or, has someone been able to add more DNS servers directly to Windows settings, using this type of connection device?

 

I guess it's time to say goodbye to DNS services