SmartDNS does not encrypt your connection

Unlike standard VPN services that change your IP as well as encrypt your connection, SmartDNS does not encrypt your connection. This is a big difference and we thought you want to have a better understanding of how it works.

Don’t get us wrong: while a VPN solution actually enables you to overcome geolocation–limited services like Hulu, BBC iPlayer and so on and so forth, some people may not want the additional features and software that such solution wants you to install.

In fact, in order to use a VPN service, most of the times, you would have to install a VPN client. This VPN client would then manage all the encryption and address mapping. Depending on the platform you use, a different client may need to be installed. So, there is different client whether you use Windows, Mac or Linux. The same applies to smartphones and other mobile devices.

No need to install additional software

On the other hand, with the SmartDNS solution that OverPlay is proposing, there’s no need to install additional software on your computer/mobile device. In fact, the trick is to redirect your entire internet DNS request to OverPlay’s DNS servers. Depending on the country where you want to land, you would then have a different IP Address to be used as a DNS server.

The trick here is then to use OverPlay’s DNS servers instead of the ones that your ISP is automatically giving you. As a reference, a DNS, which stands for Domain Naming System, is an internet service that translates a Fully Qualified Domain Name (aka FDQN) similar to www.google.com to an actual IP address in the form of 209.85.143.104 (if we’re dealing with IPv4). This IP address is unique throughout the internet and is associated with a computer/server.

OverPlay SmartDNS is faster

By using OverPlay’s SmartDNS services instead of your ISP’s DNS servers, you redirect all your internet request to OverPlay’s servers; those servers will then manage to do the trick for allowing you to pretend that your IP is located in some other countries, thereby allowing to overcome some geolocation limitations.

This service from OverPlay, while still in testing mode, can be interesting for those who don’t want to install additional software on their computer. Moreover, I expect that it can be interesting to use this solution rather than the full VPN service on low-performance computer/mobile phone since it only redirects internet requests into another DNS instead of consuming more computing power by running a VPN encryption for each and every requests.

This SmartDNS feature isn’t a separate service though, it comes bundled with any OverPlay subscription that you take.

What’s your view on this? Do you think this is sufficient enough for you as a service if your goal is to overcome geolocation-limitations?

>> Overplay

Overplay is one of the top VPN providers on the market is known especially for their SmartDNS solution. Read our Overplay VPN review.

The public presentation of Overplay’s offer

Let’s start the Overplay VPN review by presenting the offer:

Price: $9.95/month. You can pay via Paypal or Google Checkout.

Countries: Overplay claims to have points of presence in over 60 countries.

Bandwidth: unlimited

The installation part

Overplay provides a very well documented (text or HD video) installation guide for most of the popular platforms that exist nowadays. You can see the screenshot of the documentation here:

For Windows, has an installer. For advanced users, instructions and resources for manual installation are given too- this is a great feature, especially for those who don’t want to install a lot of OpenVPN client on their computer.

I installed the OverPlay VPN client version 2.0.0.63 on my Windows 7 laptop. Be careful as the installation process requires that you have a running internet connection. The good thing is that this installer manages to install TAP drivers as well as other components that are needed to make things work. So installation is just a breeze.

The use of SmartDNS from Overplay

Implementation of SmartDNS: it comes bundled Free with the subscription you have with Overplay. While SmartDNS isn’t a solution for encrypting your internet connection, it can be helpful for overriding some limitations that may be installed on your side of the network.

The good thing is that SmartDNS maintains a whitelist of websites that can be accessed, so if you install OverPlay’s SmartDNS servers on your office’s router, then get all your LAN devices use the router’s DNS- your entire network will benefit from this service.

I didn’t have the chance to test it but Overplay claims that SmartDNS even works with problematic routers like iPads, AppleTVs, Roku or BoxeeBox. If you ever have the chance to test it, feel free to provide some feedback here.

• Overplay states that they “permit legal torrent traffic, but all copyright abuse notifications we receive are investigated and followed up on”
• When it comes to speed of the VPN, Overplay provides a nice tool to test the VPN speed– this comes really handy.
• What is logged?  This is a question that is often asked by how-to-hide-ip. Overplay actually affirms that it doesn’t log the websites you are visiting – which is a great feature.
• In terms of protocols, Overplay supports OpenVPN, PPTP, L2TP. Some servers also support SSTP.
• Although I haven’t tested it personally, it may be interesting for gamers to know that OverPlay provides a tool (based on DD-WRT capable router) that allows PS3, XBOX360 and other devices that don’t have native VPN support.

Conclusion

To sum-up the Overplay VPN review: as opposed to some other VPN solutions, the good thing with Overplay is that you get access to the whole list of VPN servers (62 countries) with the same subscription of $9.95/month. Moreover, they’ve gone the extra mile to make it work with devices that don’t have built-in VPN client. Finally, the great documentation is definitely a plus for OverPlay.

>> Overplay