A couple of weeks back I had discussed the web-browsing enhancements you may gain by using the Google Public DNS Servers. Here I am with a new tool that can further boost your browsing speeds – in some cases even up to the order of 700% !
Namebench is an open source DNS benchmarking utility which can determine the fastest DNS servers for your internet link just by running a couple of short tests (average duration: 4-5 minutes).
…namebench runs a fair and thorough benchmark using your web browser history, tcpdump output, or standardized datasets in order to provide an individualized recommendation.
The tool is available for all major OS-es i.e. Windows, Linux and Mac and is hosted at Google Code.
I ran the tool both at my home and office and the DNS recommendations vastly improved my browsing speed. What’s cool about this approach is that the speed difference is apparent to the naked eye.
Namebench doesn’t modify your system settings in any way – that part is left entirely to you. So in case you don’t want to fire up your Network Settings panel and tweak the DNS settings manually, you can always fall back on a graphical DNS switching tool like DNS Jumper. In this context, please note that the recommendations for one particular link (say your office) may not work for another link (your home), unless both connections utilize similar links from the same ISP. So make sure to perform the benchmark separately for every connection that you wish to optimize.
If you’ve got 5 minutes to spare and / or are seeking significantly enhanced browsing experience, namebench is definitely the tool for you. And if you find it really useful, be sure to leave a comment on your experience.
Came across this cool new introduction from Google named Google Public DNS – a set of DNS Servers that are meant to replace the DNS servers that you normally use (most likely handed out automatically by your ISP) and considerably speed-up your browsing experience.
This service leverages on Google’s existing search database and thus accounts for speedy (pre-cached) DNS resolution using their load-balanced servers all around…
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Do you often encounter slow page-load times despite using a decent broadband connection? Does you browsing experience often come to a bitter halt with a message like “Looking for xxx.com” or “Waiting for xxx.com“? If you are facing similar problem, it might be indicative of a lousy DNS setup by your Internet Service Provider (ISP).
DNS or Domain Name Services are the internet’s own version of…
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Regular surfers no doubt often come across sites which seem to defy the standard format for a web-address, i.e. www.some-site.com and take up forms like www1.some-site.com. It gets people wondering what actually is this www1 ! I’ve heard some really funny and odd explanations regarding this www1, www2 etc. and most of them border around the being the “second version of web/internet”
In this…
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Arizona based Ten Ships has announced the first public beta of their all new product AjaxDNS, which is an Ajax framework …
… for any systems administrator, support technician, or anyone that needs quick network and domain tools and analysis.
The features offered are:
Live DNS
Whois Search
IP Whois
HTTP Headers
RBL Search
Ping
DNS Traversal
Here’s a screenshot…
Looks quite cool and queries even faster. I say, give it a try
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