Sunday, August 1, 2010

Increase Internet Speed by Changing DNS Server - namebench

Have you ever wondered why your web browser always hangs when you enter the wrong URL address? The reason is your web browser keep looking for the IP address of the URL from the DNS server but the IP address cannot be resolved.

As long as you type in the URL address (e.g. www.google.com), the DNS server will try to resolved it to the actual IP address (e.g. 64.233.181.104). Therefore if your DNS server's respond is low, it takes longer to resolve the IP address and eventually this causes your overall internet connection becomes slower.

Usually people will suggest you to use the Google DNS server (i.e. 8.8.8.8 or 8.8.4.4) as it is believed the fastest DNS server. Is that true? The "namebench" is the software / freeware to tell you to the answer!

Let's try it out:

  • Download "namebench" here.
  • Install for Windows or Mac version.
  • Run the application and you will see the following screen.
  • Let's everything to be default (it detects your location automatically). If the location is not correct, you can change it. Click "Start Benchmark".

As you can see from the result, the Google Public DNS is 215% faster than my default DNS server. That is really awesome. Google rocks! 

These are the suggested DNS server that you will need set in your system:
  • Primary Server - 8.8.4.4 (Secondary Google Public DNS Server)
  • Secondary Server - 202.188.0.133 (Primary Streamyx DNS server)
  • Tertiary Server - 202.188.1.5 (Secondary Streamyx DNS server)
Follow the instruction here to change DNS server for your operating system: Changing DNS Server


Some Notes/Tips: . 
  1. For preferred DNS server in Windows, put the suggested primary server by namebench. For alternate DNS server, put the suggested secondary server by namebench.
  2. If you connect your PC or laptop through both LAN and Wireless network, you need to apply the setting to both network(i.e.Wireless and LAN). Basically you need to apply the setting to each of the network (i.e. wireless, LAN and dial-up connection).
Does this help? I hope so...

6 Comments:

Mt. said...

reliable or not ? google software sure says google fast mah, even target test sites are all google site only ...

ChampDog said...

You have a point... but I will still think reliable. :)

Are you sure the target website is only Google sites? How can you tell from the software?

If that is really the case, then we all get cheated. :)

Anonymous said...

Only people who are idiots complaint before even trying.... sad..of course it works.. i tried downloading on megaupload and my speed was the fastest that it has ever been... Try it first before u start complaining...

ChampDog said...

Would this affect the downloading speed? I thought this suppose only reduce the speed for DNS lookup?

Anonymous said...

Awesome stuff! Didn't knew you could switch DNS servers to Google. Very helpful. Keep it up!

ChampDog said...

Thanks! :)


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