You can read more about improvements to a couple of public DNS services on ArsTechnica and Lifehacker. After the break you will learn a few more things about the top public DNS services as well as how to determine which one best suits your Internet connection.
An often-used analogy to explain the Domain Name System is that it serves as the phone book for the Internet by translating human-friendly computer hostnames into IP addresses. For example, the domain name www.example.com translates to the addresses 192.0.32.10 (IPv4) and 2620:0:2d0:200::10 (IPv6). The Domain Name System makes it possible to assign domain names to groups of Internet resources and users in a meaningful way, independent of each entity's physical location.
Here are the industry's best options:
OpenDNS is a DNS resolution service launched by computer scientist and entrepreneur David Ulevitch, in July 2006. OpenDNS extends DNS adding features such as as misspelling correction, phishing protection, and optional content filtering. It provides a ad-supported service and a paid advertisement-free service. OpenDNS provides the following recursive nameserver addresses for public use, mapped to the nearest operational server location by anycast routing:
IPv4 addresses:
208.67.222.222
208.67.220.220
Google Public DNS
Google Public DNS is a freely provided closed-source DNS service announced on 3 December 2009, as part of Google's, self-proclaimed, effort to make the web faster.Google Public DNS provides the following recursive nameserver addresses for public use, mapped to the nearest operational server location by anycast routing:
IPv4 addresses:
8.8.8.8
8.8.4.4
IPv6 addresses:
2001:4860:4860::8888
2001:4860:4860::8844
Choosing the best for you
Enter Namebench! It hunts down the fastest DNS servers available for your computer to use. namebench runs a fair and thorough benchmark using your web browser history, tcpdump output, or standardized datasets in order to provide an individualized recommendation. Namebench is completely free and does not modify your system in any way. The project began as a 20% project at Google.
Namebench runs on Mac OS X, Windows, and UNIX, and is available with a graphical user interface as well as a command-line interface. The app is portable on Windows. Start it up, select Top 2,000 Websites in Query Data Source and Start Benchmark. It will take a few minutes for it to perform all required tests and you will be presented with a detailed result which will help you to decide what works best for your connection.
The best option would be to change the DNS from your router. However, that differs from model to model, so just Google for help. In the following I will exemplify changing the DNS on major operating systems.
Windows 7
- Go the Control Panel, click Network and Internet, then Network and Sharing Center, and click Change adapter settings.
- For example, to change the settings for an Ethernet connection, right-click Local Area Connection, and click Properties.
- Select the Networking tab. Under This connection uses the following items, select Internet Protocol Version 4 (TCP/IPv4) or Internet Protocol Version 6 (TCP/IPv6) and then click Properties.
- Click Advanced and select the DNS tab.
- Select Use the following DNS server addresses. If there are any IP addresses listed in the Preferred DNS server or Alternate DNS server, write them down for future reference.
- Replace those addresses with the IP addresses of the DNS servers. Apply the changes. Restart the connection
Ubuntu
- In the System menu, click Preferences, then click Network Connections.
- To change the settings for an Ethernet connection, for example, select the Wired tab, then select your network interface in the list. It is usually called eth0.
- Click Edit, and in the window that appears, select the IPv4 Settings or IPv6 Settings tab.
- If the selected method is Automatic (DHCP), open the dropdown and select Automatic (DHCP) addresses only instead. If the method is set to something else, do not change it.
- In the DNS servers field, enter the DNS IP addresses, separated by a space.
- Click Apply to save the change. If you are prompted for a password or confirmation, type the password or provide confirmation.
Mac OS X
- From the Apple menu, click System Preferences, then click Network.
- To change the settings for an Ethernet connection, select Built-In Ethernet, and click Advanced.
- Select the DNS tab.
- Click + to replace any listed addresses
- Click Apply and OK.
Open a command prompt in your OS of choice and run the following command. Replace <Your DNS> with the appropriate IP address, for example:
tracert -d 8.8.8.8
if you want to test Google’s Public DNS.
Windows:
tracert -d <Your DNS>
Mac OS X:
/usr/sbin/traceroute -n -w 2 -q 2 -m <Your DNS>
Linux:
sudo traceroute -n -w 2 -q 2 -m 30 <Your DNS>
If the last line of the output does not list <Your DNS> as the final hop, or if there are significant timeouts, there may be a network problem preventing you from contacting the desired servers and you should try another one or make sure you configured your connection properly. If it works you're done: enjoy your faster and more secure Internet connection!