A free way to increase your internet access speed.

[oshunluvr]

I got tired of looking at Verizon's default (read "dumb") redirect page whenever I mis-typed a URL so I went looking for a better DNS. I'm not going to bore everyone with definitions of my abbreviations or what DNS does - that's what google is for...

On my search I discovered this free and very useful tool DNS Benchmark.

This is a windows executable that works flawlessly with a simple wine DNSBench.exe

A few minutes into it and I had a list of better DNS addresses to use from the default listing the program provides. Then it offered me a world-wide DNS server search (based on my location) of almost 5000 potential DNS addresses. A 40 minute scan creates a top 50 list - which I then speed compared.

I plugged the two top contenders into my modem/router and bang - Kubuntu Forums loads noticeably faster. All this excellent service is free. 8)

Good luck but YMMV!

[dibl]

Re: A free way to increase your internet access speed.

Very nice tip, oshunluvr -- running my "top 50" list now.

[oshunluvr]

Re: A free way to increase your internet access speed.

dibl - any results worth talking about? Or has the hail knocked out your internet... <chuckle>

[ubuntuku]

Re: A free way to increase your internet access speed.

You can also just use namebench, it's in the repos.

[SteveRiley]

Re: A free way to increase your internet access speed.

Recycling electrons...I posted a brief writeup about namebench in the ISPs policing downloads thread.

Oshun, do you remember the IP addresses of the Verizon servers that were "helping" you? I've been using Verizon's primary and secondary servers, 4.2.2.1 and 4.2.2.2, for a while now. They don't appear to hijack any NXDOMAIN answers.

[oshunluvr]

Re: A free way to increase your internet access speed.

They started with 72... but I didn't write them down. I'm using Verizon FIOS Internet so it's likely a whole different set of servers I would guess. I was obtusely referring to the re-direct page you get when mis-typing a URL. I hate that they sneak in another way to make me see ads just because I mis-keyed. I would rather just be able to correct my mistake and hit enter instead of re-entering the whole URL again.

I'm using a Level3 server as my primary and some other company I've never heard of as my secondary. I decided it was better to have different hosts in case one company's equipment went down or whatever.

I assumed everybody's results would vary based on location so I didn't bother documenting the exact results or IP's.

Speaking of results, I use my hosts file to block a few thousand IP's. If I typed in the IP of a particular URL that I often visit, would it skip DNS resolution and go directly to page loading? Worth a real world test I think...

[dibl]

Re: A free way to increase your internet access speed.

dibl - any results worth talking about? Or has the hail knocked out your internet... <chuckle>

Don't say "hail" -- I'm still getting over the last event!

About a year ago I had changed to the two OpenDNS servers, in lieu of my Time Warner ISP's DNS service (i.e. RoadRunner), thinking I was doing something useful (why, I don't actually remember). As a result of the DNS Benchmark assessment, I changed back to the RoadRunner IP address -- it came out the fastest. There really isn't a lot of difference, however.

Yeah, the Level 3 servers were there in the top half-dozen, as well.

EDIT: I just ran it again -- results look about the same as yesterday. A picture is worth .....

[img width=400 height=250]http://img840.imageshack.us/img840/3830/dnsbench6dec11.png[/img]

[SteveRiley]

Re: A free way to increase your internet access speed.

I was obtusely referring to the re-direct page you get when mis-typing a URL.

"NXDOMAIN" is the response from a DNS server that doesn't know the answer to a question and doesn't know know to find the answer. It's easy to hijack that if you own the DNS server -- simply scan reply traffic with a source port of 53/udp or 53/tcp and if you see NXDOMAIN, interject your own answer. This is exactly what your ISP is doing. By using some other DNS server, you're avoiding the hijack.

Speaking of results, I use my hosts file to block a few thousand IP's. If I typed in the IP of a particular URL that I often visit, would it skip DNS resolution and go directly to page loading?

Yup, but not measurably so. DNS answers include a TTL, or time-to-live, expressed in seconds. Client resolvers (your browser) will cache answers for however long the TTL specifies. For example, Yahoo's is 295 seconds, Google's is 44 seconds. The risk of relying on hard-coded addresses will manifest itself if the address you originally selected changes, which actually happens frequently on popular sites.

[oshunluvr]

Re: A free way to increase your internet access speed.

Yeah Steve - exactly why I changed DNS servers. I had done that in the past, but been lazy about it since switching to FIOS. It's so fast, I didn't bother changing. I also realize the caveat re: hard coded URLs. I was thinking of specific sites that don't have multiple servers or dynamic IP's- like my company's VPN. Google on the other hand would be like chasing a ghost!

dibl: Thanks for posting that. In my neighborhood, Level3 beat OpenDNS by a bit. Looks reversed in your results.

[SteveRiley]

Re: A free way to increase your internet access speed.

I was thinking of specific sites that don't have multiple servers or dynamic IP's- like my company's VPN.

For that case, it ought to work fine.