Find Your Fastest External DNS Server – Speed Up Web Browsing

Updated April 2020

Is your Internet web browsing speed slow? Are your download speeds slow?  So you travel and sometimes have problems browsing the web when you are on the road? If so then carry on.

When browsing the web we use something called DNS, it converts IP addresses to Host Names, meaning each website you go to has a number that ties in with it. www.google.com is 209.85.229.147 .

The job of converting these names to IP addresses is done via DNS servers. so if you can find the fastest DNS servers for your server or pc then you can in theory browse the web faster. To do so read this solution.

Solution

First things first lets  run a connection speed test , once we have the speeds we can contine.We are going to use a little tool called Name Bench, this is now owned by google, it scans the web for the fastest DNS servers that would work for you and gives you the P addresses of them

So first download it from here… http://code.google.com/p/namebench/ | Download Name Bench

Once downloaded simply install it, then run it, you will see this screen below.

Leave all the default settings, it will pick up your country and also what browser you are running, click in the bottom right hand corner to start the test.

This will now go away for about 5 mins , testing servers on the web to see what suits your system and setup best. Be patient.

Once done it will provide you with the report load into your browser. It will give you the DNS servers that it thinks are fastest for you. Notice I have highlighted these addresess.

This is basically telling me that that the fastest DNS server for web browsing for me is google on 8.8.8.8 and second is 158.43.192.1.

we now need to take these addresses and use them ou our server or pc…heres how.

Speed up Web Browsing

So we need to tell your windows 7 machine to use the numbers provided from name bench. In your task bar in the bottom right hand corner you will see this Icon..right click it and select Open Network and Sharing Centre.

You will then see the screen below, select the highlighted section that says Change Adapter Settings

You will now see your network cards. You will most likely have two. One called Local Area Connection and one called Wireless Network Connection.

You need to select the correct connection here so if you are on wireless right click Wireless Network Connection then Properties. If you have a network cable plugged into your pc then right click Local Area Connection then select properties. You will then see the screen below.

Double click the section ive highlighted in blue called Internet Protocol Version 4 and you will see this screen below.

You will see the section called Use the following DNS server addresses. Ive highlighted below. Select that it will enable you to enter the ip addresses that name bench gave you.

Do so.

Once done click OK, then OK again to close the screens. You are now using the faster DNS servers , your downloading speeds should be better as should your web site browsing faster. 🙂

Change Your Servers DNS Forwarder

If you have a server and you want to change your DNS forwarders to use the address supplied by name bench then do the following.

Click on start > Programs > Administrator Tools then DNS. Right click on your server name select properties , a screen will appear , select the forwarders tab as seen below.

Again, enter the addresses given by name bench in the section called Selected Domains Forwarder IP Address. Click ok. Right click on your server again and choose Clear Cache. You are now using these servers for DNS look up