The team at UnoTelly have asked me to put their UnoDNS service through it’s paces and here’s the result.
Disclosure: I’ve been given a free subscription to review their service.
What is UnoDNS?
UnoDNS is a service which enables you to access content as if you’re in another country. UnoDNS enables you to easily view shows and online channels which otherwise have geographic restrictions – like all the good U.S. TV which we can’t normally view in the UK, or on the flip side, greats like BBC iPlayer when you’re travelling abroad.
UnoDNS Dynamo
One of the nice things about UnoTelly is their “UnoDNS Dynamo” feature which is an intelligent DNS technology developed by UnoTelly which allows you to pre-set which location you’d like different channels to go via.
This is a cool feature as it allows you to, access US channels like Comedy Central while having Netflix running via Sweden – or one of the other 19 possible locations – which makes it easy to get the best of both.
DNS Vs VPN
The key difference between UnoDNS and traditional VPN services is speed.
Unlike VPN services you’re not routing all of your traffic through their servers and adding latency (lag) due to the “middle-man”.
You connect directly to the streaming source (ie. Netflix, Hulu) and enjoy full speed streaming!
DNS also has one big advantage over VPN – There’s no need for software, and everything that works on the internet understands DNS.
Even if you’re not able to configure custom DNS servers on your device, it’s usually possible to configure these on your home router so all devices which connect use UnoDNS.
UnoDNS Benchmarks
I’ve always been a little cautious over DNS services like this as usually I tend to find they simply don’t have the power behind their DNS to keep DNS resolution fast and reliable.
Naturally I decided to put UnoDNS to the test – A boat load of DNS queries later…
As you can see from GRC’s DNS Benchmark tool, the UnoDNS servers performed fairly well with only my ISP (Virgin Media) and some of the large Tier 1 networks out performing them.
But even so, there’s no noticeable speed differences in the slightest.
The not quite so good bits
There are some aspects of UnoTelly which are a little rough around the edges, such as a few missing icons on their website and wrong videos on the devices page (e.g. Apple TV Video on Windows 7 page).
While the DNS Benchmarks consistently put UnoDNS’s primary DNS Server (176.58.107.53) as the fastest, their secondary server (158.255.215.175) did seem to lag behind a little in the ranking.
None of these are serious, and are things which I’m sure UnoTelly will be able to tidy up as they grow.
Conclusion
Overall the UnoDNS service seems like a nifty and advanced service which does what it says on the tin, it flawlessly enables easy and convenient access to content with no impact on speed. And if you go for their Gold plan for just $3 more per month you also get their excellent VPN service (also tested, also super fast!).
Check them out at UnoTelly.com!