I'm not a blockchain fan but "somebody tried this once and it didn't work" is hardly a dismissal of an entire class of ideas. Beanz didn't catch on but bitcoin seems to have.
Not just 'somebody', but like a dozen different somebodies with many different methodologies. Getting an 'alternate root' DNS system trusted in any appreciable percentage of popular operating systems and web browsers, in a default out-of-the-box configuration, is a very hard problem to solve.
Yes, it is a very hard problem to solve. This is primarily because a 30 year old DNS system is entrenched into the infrastructure of the internet, it was not built to change and so implementing changes fights the network effect.
The only solution to this problem is brute force. The problem is a brick wall. The only way to get past it is to keep creating newer, adaptable naming systems and supporting them. Every attempt to create a domain registry system that is not centrally controlled I will support, even though most of them will fail.
Blockchain technology only became popular in the last decade and, as much as it has become a meme at this point, DNS is actually one of the best use cases for it. The current DNS is distributed, but highly centralized, and paying renewal fees for keeping a record in a file and a server running feels like extortion. An immutable, consistent and decentralized storage system solves those issues, and I can pay once and technically own that record for life. (Though Unstoppable Domains' prices seem arbitrarily high...)
So I'm hopeful that some of this new tech can disrupt the current system, which we know is inherently flawed.[1]
While I'm not going to use Opera anytime soon, we should celebrate this news and push for other browsers to do the same.
That's a fair point, and I don't have an answer. Presumably there would be enough TLDs to ensure a unique name is not as important, as it's just a short label anyway. Maybe there could be an expiration or some kind of override mechanism built into the protocol, though I'm not familiar with NFTs to know if this is feasible.
I'm not saying there wouldn't be challenges with this approach, but it seems worth a try if it means replacing an outdated and vulnerable system.
The ENS (Ethereum Name Service) technically loans out the domain names and they are put up again on the market if the owner of the domain doesn't renew it before expiry.
What annoys me is that there is no easy way to change DNS servers. Try on IOS, or Android and you'll find it such a hassle being hidden within other scary network settings. Windows you need to click through five different features and not forgetting that DNS is an alien word to most. Try and explain it in the simplest of ways such as "a phone book for computers" you've just bored the subject to death
I use OpenNIC and know how to navigate around my router. However for my mother, that's a whole different story.
This is no joke. Changing the DNS server on Android is difficult for anyone that hasn't hacked android since it's early days. And it is getting more difficult. The fact that it is not an easily accessible setting is an indication that it is designed deliberately to disempower people.
Then configure her router's DHCP to set DNS to the OpenNIC servers or to the router itself which forwards to OpenNIC. That has worked for all my devices, and would be a pain to configure otherwise.