namebench - Open-source DNS Benchmark Utility -

[renovation]

it seen to really work im seeing a speed increase using this ~
http://code.google.com/p/namebench/

[b-man1]

looks like an interesting utility. i ran it and it found one (Level 3) that is supposedly 1600%+ faster than my current. lol

i'll play around with it more later today and see if it helps. thanks for sharing!

[FlyingPenguin]

Level 3 is one of the major backbone DNS servers on the west coast. I like to use OpenDNS. I configure all my clients for OpenDNS for safety (NortonDNS, GoogleDNS and OpenDNS will warn you if you try to browse a web page with a malicious script on it). My fastest here is Comcast, but Google is #4 and OpenDNS is #5.

Be aware that you should run this test several times, and at different times a day. A lot of ISPs don't maintain their DNS servers very well. Ironically, the default DNS your Internet provider supplies may have the best ping time, but may have terrible response times.

BTW: Steve Gibson wrote a utility that does the same thing something like a year ago: https://www.grc.com/dns/benchmark.htm
I think I posted it a while back.

[b-man1]

yup, i also use OpenDNS, so that's what it was compared to in the results. i reran it and L3 dropped down to #5 in that test. i do think keeping OpenDNS is worth it for the extra benefits, as you said (security, etc).