Comments on: Speed Up Your Internet By Tweaking Your DNS

By: brad

brad — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 04:51:09 +0000

19/5/13

By: Gond

Gond — Fri, 11 Nov 2011 18:14:23 +0000

Wouldn’t it be even faster to host your own open DNS server and pull down the DNS records to that, then point your desktop to your DNS server?

By: Speed Up Your Internet By Tweaking Your DNS | Sync™ Blog » Blogging and Writting

Mon, 26 Sep 2011 13:05:44 +0000

[...] via Speed Up Your Internet By Tweaking Your DNS | Sync™ Blog. [...]

By: Tux

Tux — Tue, 19 Jul 2011 20:02:48 +0000

Hi,
I just stumbled upon this article and it helped me for understanding what actually DNS does. But as a cs student I should ask: initial load time reduces greatly but after getting the actual ip after recognizing that domain ip, I suppose the browser caches that ip and send other requests according to that. You put a screen shot that says %51 speedup, is it possible?

For example, the name of the site is http://dummysite.com and its ip is 195.54.36.75, after the first load, browser hanldes the naming doesn’t it? For say, if I wanted to link to http://dummysite.com/log, browser should automatically link me to http://195.54.36.75/log without using dns. If it doesn’t, why?

By: Jeremy Phan

Jeremy Phan — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 22:29:39 +0000

Excellent points!

No provider is perfect and even Google’s services occasionally go down. That said, most open/public DNS servers are hosted by Internet service providers or other large, Internet-related corporations/non-profits.

In my results, the top 5 are ISPs, #6 is gov.on.ca, #7 is OpenDNS.com, #8 is Google’s public DNS and so on.

DNS queries are also not traffic intensive since DNS entries are stored on your local computer once you’ve visited a website so it’s not a resource hog on the ISP.

While there are no guarantees on day-to-day performance, if you notice any bottlenecks, it is a quick change to revert to your original ISP’s servers or to search for another one. (That’s also why there are entries for two servers.)

By: Simon Cohen

Simon Cohen — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 22:11:24 +0000

Hey Jeremy, one thing we should probably mention is that there are some important caveats with changing the DNS settings given to you by your ISP:
- Third party DNS servers have no relationship with you. If they are compromised and end up sending you to a phishing site, there’s nothing you can do about it
- Data collection: Your ISP’s data collection policies are probably easily obtained and since you’re in a relationship with them you can address any concerns with them directly. By using a third party DNS e.g. Google, you are giving them access to ALL of your websurfing data. Should they choose, they could collect all of this, and do whatever they like with it.
- Speed is not the same as reliability. On any given day, a third party DNS server could test faster than your ISP’s. But what about the next day? What guarantees are in place to ensure they are available when you need them. If you’re not paying for it, what business model are they using to stay in business (see my earlier point about data collection).

Just some food for thought!