Level 3, OpenDNS and "anycast" use
 

I've been having some reliability issues with my ISP's DNS servers. Does anyone have any experience with OpenDNS or the Level 3 (4.2.2.1 - 4.2.2.5) DNS servers?

OpenDNS appears to have some nice filtering features I may want to use for my kids, but appears to have an annoying redirect for unknown addresses. Not that I can fault them for trying to make a few bucks through the redirect. :D

I've heard Level 3's servers just return a "page not found" error, which would be more desirable. But it doesn't have the server side filtering.

Also, both use a form of "anycast", which from my understanding redirects requests to fastest available server. Does this have any ill effects on secure sessions like online purchasing where you don't want the POSTDATA lost by switching connections?

I use BT's (British Telecom) Primary and Secondary DNS servers on my machine, and I've used them on a non-BT connection, albeit one in the UK, so they don't seem to be private.

Primary : 194.74.65.69
Secondary : 194.72.9.34

Tell me if it works.

If not, Cisco's public DNS is a good choice:

Primary : 64.102.255.44
Secondary : 128.107.241.185

Using an OpenDNS or Level 3 DNS server won't cause POSTDATA to be lost from switching connections, for the simple reasons that it will *not* cause the connections to switch. The only connection that the anycasting will impact is the connection between your system and the DNS server in question, *not* the website you're viewing.

for instance, if the A record for store.example.com is 10.0.0.1 then it doesn't matter if I use 208.67.222.222 or 4.2.2.1 or my ISP's nameserver, regardless, i still get 10.0.0.1 and if it isnt anycast than no dns server in the world will make it anycast.

Hope this is helpful info.

-joe