Of late DNS and their associated services has been in the news, with Google now starting their own DNS service (Google Public DNS).  This article is to help anyone who is interested in the Who What and How.

What Is DNS

DNS stands for Domain Name Service, Wikipedia has a good definition at:   Domain Name System. But in short you can look at DNS as the Internet White Pages.  Every website has an associated IP (Internet Protocol) address.  IP addresses are in the format of 12 numbers; xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx .  DNS takes the domain name that you type into your browser such as: http://tekpedia.net and translates it to the actual IP address and then presents it in your browser.

Its easy to see how this can affect the speed of your browsing.  Most of us use the DNS provided by our ISP (Internet Service Provider).  This may not be the best choice in many instances.

Base Line

In deciding what your best options are, the first step is to check the speed of some of the available services.  OpenBench is an open source program that will test the 3 primary DNS services (Google, OpenDNS and your ISP’s) to see which is faster.  You can download OpenBench from our downloads page:

Network Settings

Once you decide on the service to use you will need the Primary and Secondary IP addresses which OpenBench will provide.  You will then want to configure your network settings for your new DNS servers.

You will need to restart your computer for your settings to take affect.

OpenDNS

For the most part, you will want to pick the service which provides you the fastest response.  I have been using OpenDNS for the past year and its not always about speed but its also about the tools the service provides.  With OpenDNS you not only have access to a wide range of reports on your network Internet usage; Great if you have children.  You are also provided a customizable content filtering.  The filtering will allow you prohibit certain content from ever reaching your browser, such as Porno, Phishing, and Adware.  This additional filtering can provide you an additional level of security you didn’t have previously.

OpenDNS is definitely worth a look see before you decide on which DNS service to use.

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