The Internet works by assigning a series of numbers to each computer connected to it. This is called the computer's IP address. An example of an IP address is: 64.176.127.178. You can simply type in this series of numbers into your browser's location field (near the top of your browser's window) and press your keyboard's Enter key and your browser will go to that computer's web pages.
Although these numerical IP addresses are easy for a computer to use, they are difficult for us humans to remember. So an address system was invented that uses words or letters called the DNS (Domain Name System). A DNS name is what you are probably more familiar with than IP numbers. An example of a DNS name is: www.agnitum.com.
DNS names are much easier for us to remember, but our browsers still need to use the IP address to find and transfer files on the Internet. Therefore, there are databases throughout the Internet that keep track of what IP address goes with what DNS name. To find the IP address that corresponds to a DNS name, sometimes your browser has to consult several different databases located at different places on the Internet and this often takes time.
To speed things up, Outpost Firewall provides a personalized look-up table of DNS addresses on your own computer. This is called a domain name cache and you can customize it however you like.
Outpost Firewall maintains the DNS Cache automatically within your specifications to include those addresses that are most recently used by you. The amount of time that a DNS address is saved in the DNS Cache depends on the time you specify as one of the settings for this plug-in. It also depends on how many DNS names you want Outpost Firewall to keep track of. Only the most recently used names are kept, up to the maximum number of entries you specify.
The following topics describe how to use Outpost Firewall to control Plug-Ins:
Enabling the Domain Name Caching
Setting the limit of the DNS database