HAVE you ever had to stare too long at a message that says “Looking up http://www.mywebsite.com...” on the status bar of your browser while waiting for a page to load? The browser eventually gives up and spits out an error message. You’ve already shelled out a small fortune for your digital subscriber line (DSL) connection, so what gives?

If this sounds familiar, there’s a quick fix that will most likely speed up your browsing and protect you from some Internet scams to boot. It will work whether you’re on a DSL or a dial-up connection and whether you’re on Windows, Mac OS, Unix or Linux. And the best part is, it’s free.

The solution is called OpenDNS and here’s how it works.

Sometimes, sluggish Internet access has nothing to do with the speed of your connection but the time it takes your computer to find the right Web site.

The Internet uses the Domain Name System (DNS) to keep track of where—out of millions of connected servers—the Web site you want to visit is stored.

An Internet or IP address is stored as a unique group of four numbers separated by periods. For example, the IP address of Yahoo is 209.131.36.158. You can type this number into your browser and it will take you to the Yahoo portal. Of course, unless you’re a math savant, it’s much easier to remember “www.yahoo.com” than a bunch of numbers.

The job of matching the numbers with human-readable domain names like “yahoo.com” is done by DNS caching servers, computers that contain parts of a huge, constantly changing database of names and numbers. This is no mean feat, considering there are billions of IP addresses, most of which have matching names, and billions of requests for this information.

Typically, when you type a domain name into a browser, your computer tries to obtain its IP address from the DNS caching server of your Internet service provider. If that information is available, your browser takes you to the Web site. But if the address isn’t on your service provider’s DNS caching server, it will send your request on to another name server that might have what you need—and this takes time.

Sometimes, too, your service provider’s name server might be slow or overloaded. This certainly seems to be the case with PLDT’s myDSL service, which has given me a good number of DNS errors.

All these delays can add up when you’re typing in hundreds of DNS queries a day.

OpenDNS speeds up address lookups by maintaining really fast name servers on major Internet hubs. To take advantage of this network, all you have to do is point your computer straight to the OpenDNS servers.

On Windows XP, you can do this by going to the Control Panel from the Start menu and choosing Network Connections. Select the current connection and click on the Properties button. In the window under the phrase “This connection uses the following items:”, highlight Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) and click the Properties button again. Click the radio button that says “Use the following DNS server addresses:” and enter 208.67.222.222 as the preferred DNS server and 208.67.220.220 as the alternate DNS server. Then click OK.

On Mac OS X, select System Preferences from the Apple menu, click Network, choose the active connection and click the Configure button. Highlight the TCP/IP tab and enter the two OpenDNS IP addresses (same as above) in the “DNS Servers” window (hit the Return key after the first address). Click the Apply Now button.

More detailed and illustrated instructions, including those that cover Unix, Linux and other versions of Windows, can be found on the OpenDNS Web site. There are also instructions on how to set up wireless routers to use OpenDNS.

Aside from speed, OpenDNS has two other benefits. First, it blocks phishing sites or fraudulent Web pages set up to trick users into providing personal information under false pretenses. Second, OpenDNS will correct minor typing errors. For example, typing “ww.google.com” or “www.google.co” will still get you to Google. It’s easy to remove OpenDNS if no longer wish to use it. Just delete the two IP addresses you entered and you’re back to your old setup. I’ve been using OpenDNS for some time and have found no reason to remove it. In fact, it seems to have solved many of my DNS-related problems.

Although OpenDNS is free to everyone, the company that runs it hopes to turn a profit by selling ads on search result pages that will show up when the domain entered is not valid and not a typo it recognizes. While the company says it might charge for extra services later on, speedy, reliable DNS will always be free. That sounds good to me.