Recommend DNS services to fight against malware

Hold on whilst I go spend my time logging malware URLs to test this.. no wait I wont waste my time on that thanks. Since my earlier post explaining my frustration over Dyn and Barracuda for poor user support, broken domain submission for months, and false positives that go unresolved seems to have been deleted by a mod without informing me, I won't bother explaining it again.

Despite being a fact, it's the logical conclusion that companies that focus solely on malware blocking to make their living are better at doing it than barracuda.

If you want to live in your placebo world, feel free, I'm not going to drag you out of it. Also feel free to google or youtube some comparisons, though.

 

dude, seriously...take a chill pill. You are wigging out over someone asking about a dns service like this thread is your purpose in life. If you like Norton and ClearCloud dns better, then fine.

 

Norton DNS is good but I have found it to be too aggressive at times. I remember it blocking many legitimate sites as well. I don't know how it does now but undeniably it is one of the best DNS services. It blocks most of the malware infested links found in MDL.

 

With the good comes the bad, as they say. My experience with ClearCloud DNS, regarding false positives, is that they aren't too many; obviously, I don't search the whole Internet. I bet it has is fair share of false positives. But, whenever I come across one and report it, they're fast fixing it.

Is this your experience with Norton DNS as well? Fast fixing false positives?

 

Go find the Author of the Article and attack him.
He is responsible for the Article/Site; I am Not.
That's why I have Nothing to argue about.

+1
Indeed, some have so much time to...around.

 

There's nothing wrong with you mentioning an article, and one other user thanking you. That's more than normal.

And, all I did was to clarify a few misconceptions that author has. iWas that/is this a crime? That's all I tried to do, but you took it like some personal vendetta.

If that's the best you can do, have it as you wish it. Let's agree to disagree.

I do find it amazing that, by now, you still don't admit that the author may, at least, have some points that aren't accurate, specially considering what he thinks the hosts file purpose is all about.

When someone writes an article, stating that a hosts file is meant to map IPs to 127.0.0.1, at least, this by itself, should make one be open minded about any other possible flaws. You decided not to go that path. It's OK. But, what is not OK, is to use one's English capabilities, when one's not even a native English speaker, as an argument.

What would you think about some other person, non-native English speaker, hearing you speaking/reading the way you write their mother tongue, and come at you the same way you come at others?
Wouldn't you consider these people to be completely ... You know, one should treat others, as one wishes others to treat oneself.

As far as I am concerned, this is a completely dead matter.

 

I brought that article to DOSawaits' attention due to the
Large Hosts file-problem the guy experienced.
DOSawaits appreciated it after what he had been through.
That was the case; the only case!

Then, you isolated a part of the Article (IP/127.0.0.1 etc.)
and started attacking...

I am not responsible for the author's writings, and therefore,
I am Not responsible for replying to your Lengthy Posts against the author's views.

No, I will not even do that.
As it is evident by your Lengthy Posts, you have so MUCH Free Time.
However, there are people who don't have the time to reply to your Lengthy posts,
because they work Full-Time and sacrifice their Break-Time to be here.
OVER & OUT!

 

Lots of drama floating around in this thread....

To try to get it back on topic.

I've tested DynDNS, Comodo, Norton and ClearCloud. Regardless of what namebench and dnsbench provide with results in terms of speed, my browsing experience was fastest (based off the seat of my pants) with Norton. Which came in the slowest of that particular bunch in both benchmark apps. Maybe because those benches are primarily testing straight resolving speed, where actually browsing the internet is putting the filters to work as well....

In terms of malware protection (pulling links off the zero day sites) they all seemed fairly competent. None of them blocked everything. Though I did have an issue with DynDNS blocking things like my state's various government sites for the counties and such. And that's just one example of the little issues I had with DynDNS.

 

It's been said that a fact is merely that point at which we have agreed to allow investigation to cease. When viewed in that context, this discussion of fact takes on a different light. I agree with Vilmalith about the excess of drama floating around this thread. Maybe out of respect to their fellow Wilders members, the drama participants could ease up on that aspect of their posting. I appreciate reading about the various DNS services and their performance records, whether via anecdotal evidence or test results. I think I have started off using a very good service (NortonDNS) and I'd like to continue to consult this thread as a source of info about these services, as opposed to the anger and discord I am seeing in every other post.

 

Don't worry, as always there is just no winning with some people, I won't beat the dead horse.

The DNS benchmark is described in detail here: http://www.grc.com/dns/benchmark.htm If you want it to be most effective, use a PC that's plugged into the router via ethernet. On that PC, make sure there is no background downloads happening (Windows Updates, AV updates, etc) during the test.

But as you may or may not have noticed, you will find when comparing Norton and ClearCloud that the speed is so similar (in benchmark), you will need to compare other things.

 

I agree, not sure what the deal is. Some people have very few social skills but maybe that is from setting around on a computer all day as opposed to actually having a life. Anyway, no matter which dns is the best today- just give it a month or two and a new favorite will come along.

 

That's a ten roger and even tho more could have been trimmed, We'll simply move forward with the "Recommend DNS services to fight against malware" discussion. We'll also ask those wishing to continue the tit for tat dribble, do it elsewhere Please

 

Has anyone here been using a service like NortonDNS or ClearCloud and suddenly one of them goes down and you're not able to access the internet?
The fact that they each have a status page tells me that this happens... I wonder how frequently, and I'm guessing a user has to remember when this happens to check the DNS service he is using.

By the way, I switched from NortonDNS to ClearCloud earlier today and without benefit of a speed test to refer to (meaning I'm not into running a test), I would say that CC definitely feels faster today.

 

Page42, since both services rely on another company to do the actual DNS (e.g. NortonDNS's actual DNS is done by Dyn, not sure who does CC's), it's *highly* unlikely to encounter any downtime whatsoever. These companies generally live on a 99.9% uptime guarantee.

 

That's a nice number... 99.9%.
Has that been your experience with these services, elapsed?

 

Here's a couple links that might help as well as what FD said-
http://forums.clearclouddns.com/messageview.aspx?catid=268&threadid=5212
https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=290301

 

http://66.129.99.88/status/
That's definitely going to help, thanks acr1965.

 

Does anyone know if there is anyway of seeing a log file for what CC or Norton blocks?

 

If you mean "Do they offer a CPanel of sorts" for your network, the answer is no. I'm assuming you're looking for something similar to the OpenDNS logging.

But since some DNS services offer it, I wouldn't remove it as a potential future feature from Norton or ClearCloud due to competition.

 

Well I've never used OpenDNS so I can't compare to that.
And I'm not familiar with a CPanel.
Just a log file that shows what was blocked and when...

 

I wonder if Norton DNS blocks access to any domain ending in .cc? It does happen with ClearCloud DNS, which it's helpful for the proliferation of bad domains using the free redirection service -www.co.cc.

 

They could provide an utility that could do that, but only start when an Internet connection is found. This way, users who would like that sort of control, could have it in their own systems, without having to create an account in an on-line service.

I'd prefer this method, personally.

 

I don't experience this, e.g. http://www.test.cc/ seems to resolve. Are you sure it's not False Positives on domains? Did you report them?

 

I haven't checked this when I wrote the comment, but sometime ago, when I tried to access -www.co.cc (a legitimate and free URL/domain redirection service), ClearCloud DNS blocked it. I got in touch with Sunbelt (it was still Sunbelt) and they told that they were blocking access to all domains .cc due to the proliferation of malicious domains using this free service.

The workaround was to add -www.co.cc to the hosts file and map to its real IP.

Maybe they no longer do it that way, then.

-edit-

Sorry, my bad. It's co.cc and not .cc. I apologize for the confusion.

 

So why not use something else like www.dot.tk? .co.cc must have been really badly exploited in some country for them to justify doing that.