Speed up Browsing by using better DNS servers.

How to do things, solutions, recipes, tutorials
Post Reply
Message
Author
User avatar
ETP
Posts: 1193
Joined: Tue 19 Oct 2010, 19:55
Location: UK

Speed up Browsing by using better DNS servers.

#1 Post by ETP »

Using the fastest and most reliable DNS servers for your particular location can dramatically improve browser performance.

Typically a DSL modem/router will request DNS servers from your ISP at each boot or be pre-programmed with a couple.
In either case they are likely to be reliable but not the fastest. A gain of say 15ms may not sound like much but will be multiplied up when you surf a typical site that does hundreds of lookups to "enhance your browsing experience" together with the current pre-emptive behaviour of browsers.

The method described here involves no changes to your router setup but rather supplements it using a facility already built into Puppy.

Briefly it entails first finding out the two best DNS servers for your location and then creating one simple text file populated with that information. (Tested under Slacko 5.3.3.2 with Wine-1.5.6-i486_v1)

STEPS:
1. Download "DNS Benchmark" from here:

http://www.grc.com/dns/benchmark.htm

(It runs under Windows or Linux (with Wine) and requires no installation in either. Simply click on the .exe file to launch.)

2. Launch Benchmark and then click on "Run Benchmark". At the end of this first run you will be offered the opportunity to create a custom top 50 list for your location. It is vital that you do so. This takes about 30 odd minutes as it scans over 4000 servers globally and then produces a custom .ini file which it places in the same directory that it was launched from.

3. Exit Benchmark and then re-launch it and do another run which will use the .ini file for your specific location.

4. In your “etc
Attachments
3Top_50.png
(57.98 KiB) Downloaded 1735 times
22.png
(47 KiB) Downloaded 1711 times
11.png
(40.93 KiB) Downloaded 1761 times
Regards ETP
[url=http://tinyurl.com/pxzq8o9][img]https://s17.postimg.cc/tl19y14y7/You_Tube_signature80px.png[/img][/url]
[url=http://tinyurl.com/kennels2/]Kennels[/url]

User avatar
Monsie
Posts: 631
Joined: Thu 01 Dec 2011, 07:37
Location: Kamloops BC Canada

Speed up Browsing by using better DNS servers.

#2 Post by Monsie »

Nice find, ETP

Steve Gibson is known for some solid work in the area of computer security, eg, testing how good your firewall operates...
2. Launch Benchmark and then click on "Run Benchmark"... This takes about 30 odd minutes as it scans over 4000 servers globally and then produces a custom .ini file which it places in the same directory that it was launched from.
I am a bit surprised at how long it takes to get the results. I haven't tried Benchmark (yet) because I don't run Wine, so not able to test this myself. However, for comparison, I just finished running Google's Namebench and I got my results in 10 min. & 31 sec. That's quite a noticeable difference, and I am wondering what accounts for it... apparently both programs scan a similar number of servers initially.

While it is always good to have choices available, if I am Joe Average User... I will likely pick Namebench over Benchmark for speed of results alone.

just some food for thought,
Monsie
My [u]username[/u] is pronounced: "mun-see". Derived from my surname, it was my nickname throughout high school.

User avatar
ETP
Posts: 1193
Joined: Tue 19 Oct 2010, 19:55
Location: UK

Re: Speed up Browsing by using better DNS servers.

#3 Post by ETP »

Hi Monsie,

Thanks for your interest and comments. I suspect that Google majors on speed and Steve Gibson on reliability. The ability to narrow the search down to a country in Namebench also helps. I note also that it uses your browser caches as a source which is fine provided that you do not clear them manually before exiting or routinely keep them in tmp so that they are not saved.

The best ploy is to try both and if the results agree so much the better. In any event I would commend creating the “resolv.conf.head
Regards ETP
[url=http://tinyurl.com/pxzq8o9][img]https://s17.postimg.cc/tl19y14y7/You_Tube_signature80px.png[/img][/url]
[url=http://tinyurl.com/kennels2/]Kennels[/url]

Post Reply