Google DNS and OpenDNS

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Navaho

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Hi All

Is it worth switching my DNS to Google DNS Or OpenDNS to speed up browsing and downloads? If so, do I change it on my pc, iPad AND my ADSL modem / router?

Thanks
 
If it speeds up browsing, but usually your ISPs DNS servers should be faster for browsing, since they will point your browser to local Akamai where opendns and google dns point your browser to international akamai, so slower. Thats over and above the point that they are in london, thus replies will be 160+ ms instead of 10-20ms from your ISP dns servers.

Now if you want to disregard the above point, you only need to update it on your ADSL router, the pcs on the network will use the ADSL router via DHCP, which means indirectly they will use whatever you configure on the ADSL router.
 
Navaho said:
Is it worth switching my DNS to Google DNS Or OpenDNS to speed up browsing and downloads?
Click to expand...
It will not speed your downloads up at all. It will probably cause your browsing to be slower due to the time it takes to get to the servers which are all located in Europe.

With the current international outages its an even worse idea. Your DNS queries will be slowed down significantly by the congestion on the international links and all you browsing will be directed to international servers which are on congested links instead of the local ones which are not congested.

Overall - a generally bad idea :)
 
Navaho said:
Hi All

Is it worth switching my DNS to Google DNS Or OpenDNS to speed up browsing and downloads? If so, do I change it on my pc, iPad AND my ADSL modem / router?
Click to expand...
Bad idea since the larger ISPs cache a whole bunch of content locally, and you will only be re-directed to local copies if you're using your ISPs DNS servers.

So for instance it is much more probable you'd be able to view a 1080p video from Youtube without stuttering if its coming off local server instead of one in the EU. Another example is most updates are cached locally so will be faster & smoother to download. Easy to compare, check ping time differences to say downloads.apple.com, download.microsoft.com, www.intel.com, www.nvidia.com etc.
 
Thanks all for the advice.

So I should use my iPads DNS factory settings?

I haven't changed anything on my adsl modem, should I leave as is or change them to someone local?

Thanks, clearly I'm completely new to this but want to maximize my 4meg line which is not blowing me away, I must say...

Oh ya, I'm with Mweb uncapped unthrottled 4 meg
 
Navaho said:
So I should use my iPads DNS factory settings?

I haven't changed anything on my adsl modem, should I leave as is or change them to someone local?
Click to expand...
Yes and leave it.

Your router will be issued with the correct DNS servers on connection to your ISP, and your iPad will use the router as its DNS forwarder by default .

So you're set, nothing more to do.
 
Interesting points made above. I use OpenDNS for their filtering - is there any [plu-and-play] alternative I can use to avoid using international DNS servers?
 
Raithlin said:
Interesting points made above. I use OpenDNS for their filtering - is there any [plu-and-play] alternative I can use to avoid using international DNS servers?
Click to expand...
As mentioned, use Namebench, it finds local DNS servers as well.
 
You won't see a speed improvement, in fact you might experience the exact opposite.

However OpenDNS has a great many other features when properly setup which can be highly beneficial. Especially if you have kids in the house and want to monitor or filter their Internet.
 
SauRoNZA said:
You won't see a speed improvement, in fact you might experience the exact opposite.

However OpenDNS has a great many other features when properly setup which can be highly beneficial. Especially if you have kids in the house and want to monitor or filter their Internet.
Click to expand...
How did you concur that bro?

If a site is resolved faster (which DNS is), it will therefore be loaded faster.
 
teraside said:
How did you concur that bro?

If a site is resolved faster (which DNS is), it will therefore be loaded faster.
Click to expand...
0.5ms (thumb-sucked) is not a reason for me to change from Google to ISP DNS. The cached content might be. I would argue that Google DNS is more reliable than the ISP's. I recall that being the reason for changing to OpenDNS (issues with ISP DNS) years ago and recently to Google.
 
cpu. said:
0.5ms (thumb-sucked) is not a reason...
Click to expand...
Not a very good thumb suck ;)

Google DNS is at least 180ms further away than most ISP DNS servers. An average website needs anything from 5 to dozens of lookups. That adds seconds to your page load time.
 
ambo said:
Not a very good thumb suck ;)

Google DNS is at least 180ms further away than most ISP DNS servers. An average website needs anything from 5 to dozens of lookups. That adds seconds to your page load time.
Click to expand...
I need to test a bit then...
 
Ppl still missing the boat.

Variations in DNS server response times are trivial compared the to the intelligence of the response itself.
 
teraside said:
How did you concur that bro?

If a site is resolved faster (which DNS is), it will therefore be loaded faster.
Click to expand...

Based on the fact that it will resolve slower...being an international service.

Your ISP's DNS will more than likely be only one or two hops away, Google DNS on the other hand is 15 hops away (on my current connection).


All of that being said I've tested it with "seat of the pants" feel before and the difference generally is imperceptible.
 
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