ClearCloud London down - my day ruined

Apparently the ClearCloud London server has failed and been offline for most of the day, instead of routing all requests to another server, about 10% of domains are loading.

Facebook and Twitter don't load, you can imagine how many phone calls I got today
http://www.clearclouddns.com/Status/

Furious to the point of completely ditching ClearCloud, I can't justify moving people to CC when it results in no internet access for the entire day. But I hate the NortonDNS block page and its adverts, not sure what to do.

 

Well done ClearCloud ...

 

Indeed, they should have re-directed the traffic to Amsterdam, Paris, Frankfurt, or Vienna locations, wich all is in Europe.

 

Use OpenDNS or DynDNS.

 

DynDNS never ever again after my fiasco from their support department, I used to be with OpenDNS but their malware filtering isn't on the level of Norton or ClearCloud.

 

Hell, I never even got DynDNS to work. It always told me something wasn't set up or was wrong. OpenDNS is all but useless now unless you're into content filtering/have a kid at home who uses your system. Norton badly needs a bypass. But, on the subject of ClearCloud, I use them (and usually forget I'm even doing so), and I've had no internet issues today, so far at least.

 

I really wish I could consider Norton, the DNS malware filtering market need more companies to enter and compete because right now I feel like CC is the only real solution.

 

Well for one thing, elapsed, it's good to remember that ClearCloud is listed as beta.

And for another, no matter how inconvenient, every vendor and every software messes up sometime, and it never happens at a good time... it is always a PITA.

Just saying.

 

None of them are perfect, and I admit I've questioned their need before. Blocking malware, or blocking websites that are true phishing sites or something is fine. But, blocking an entire website that would be completely innocent, if not for the numbskull who posted a link somewhere deep in a forum, is a little overkill. Especially if it's blocked for days on end. I can get past that though, if, once the threat was removed, these DNS services would kindly remove the block. But, they're slow as a snail about it, and I don't feel like waiting for them.

 

Really? That stinks, though I never had to log a support ticket.

I use OpenDNS and its been pretty good. Helped me fairly recently with a malware/conficker alert from someone just opening a spam email.

 

No, I can't. Why were you getting phone calls because ClearCloud London was down?

 

I was getting phone calls from people telling me their Internet wasn't working....

 

hah! I was thinking this dude must be so popular in the internetz that his facebook and twitter friends started calling because he was offline for a day.

how about Google DNS )

 

No, I thought it would have been obvious sorry for the confusion. I meant when "simple" people can't access their facebook or twitter, they do what comes naturally, complain to people who might know whats wrong.

 

Still don't get it... How is it all these people who use ClearCloud know to call you?

 

Seriously? What does it matter to you? If you need to know, I am the one who set up and configured their PC's, or was the last person to fix their PC's since it last broke/got a virus infection/etc. Can we go back on topic now?

 

Found a thread on it:

http://forums.clearclouddns.com/messageview.aspx?catid=238&threadid=7506&enterthread=y

The status page seems to confirm this.

But it mentions nothing about preventing this from happening again. Everyone has downtime, but proper redirection systems should be in place to prevent complete outage. I just sent them an email to find out if they've *hopefully* put in a proper redirect system now.

 

Never was off topic... you did ask to imagine how many phone calls you got in #1 and in #14 "thought (that) would have been obvious." Excuuuuuuuse the curiosity about what is neither imaginable nor obvious - as if everyone knows YOU. As Yoda might point out, "Still much to learn have you, Padawan. Of the Universe the center you are not. Hmmmm?"

So, your day got ruined because you hooked up your users to a beta service and those poor slobs are "simple" and they have the audacity to complain. I rarely find anything on Wilder's that's linkable, but this thread is getting sent off to my cohorts. It's a keeper! Thanks.

And good luck with your phone. Seriously.

 

ClearCloud is about as much a beta as Gmail is, that's only an excuse for when they screw up. If it actually was a beta, you'd think they would be contributing developing time to it, instead of leaving it stale?

But yes, it is somewhat negligent to install beta software. But when it's a gate that filters 99% of the malware "simple" users keep finding a way to get infected with, why would I hesitate?

 

True that ClearCloud is technically beta, and no real competition it seems. I had thought that Norton just rebranded someone elses DNS, like DynDNS. Actually DynDNS uses Barracuda filtering which I've found from limited experience to be lacking and inaccurate. I personally use OpenDNS but mainly for content filtering and speed. I leave the malware handling up to locally installed apps. Google DNS states that they explicitly do not filter malware and provide safesearch type content filtering. Sorry bro, but it leaves me thinking; how hard can it be to have a back-up dns? I suppose since there are main and alternate IP's for dns you could use 2 different services in the future. I have no idea if that would even work.

 

Excellent idea. Here's ClearCloud and Norton DNS...

 

Cool...how's that working?

 

Oh, I don't run that way... I was just piggybacking on your idea for the OP to consider running.
I use both ClearCloud addresses.

Preferred DNS server: 74.118.212.1
Alternate DNS server: 74.118.212.2

 

OK. I thought I would go ahead and give this a try. I am using OpenDNS as my primary and DynDNS (their primary IP) as my alternate. We'll see how it goes.

 

The way I see it, if funkyguy had set his people up this way (ClearCloud + Norton DNS backup) then his phone wouldn't have been ringing off the hook yesterday. I think I'll go ahead and put it back in place on my machines just in case.