This month’s tip from Mac-Aide.com: Use Public DNS for Faster Web Surfing
I have noticed, while helping several Mac-using friends here in Florida, that their Web surfing experience is less than optimal. It’s not that the “wire speed” they are getting from their Internet Service Provider is slow — most of us here in Central Florida have at least 10Mbps download speeds through the local providers. In fact, I’ve found that the culprit is slow Domain Name Server (DNS) response from their ISP.
DNS is part of the behind-the-scenes ‘plumbing’ of the Internet. DNS is what makes it possible for your computer to connect to other sites on the Internet using easy-to-remember names like Yahoo.com or Google.com. Without DNS, you would need to remember and type in long Internet Protocol addresses for each site, like 70.121.3.82 (my computer’s current IP address on the Internet). Instead, a special computer at your ISP called the Domain Name Server ‘translates’ the easy-to-remember names like google.com or flmug.org into the IP addresses that are actually used get you to the Web sites you want to view.
A slow DNS server at your ISP can slow down your whole Web experience. Since most Web pages today place dozens or hundreds of requests to various servers around the Internet, a delay of even a few hundreths of a second per request in DNS response can add up to several seconds of delay on every page you visit. What I’ve found is that the local ISPs do not have fast, reliable and responsive DNS servers to quickly and efficiently send their customer’s traffic where it needs to go.
In every case I’ve seen so far, a quick, easy and free change in the DNS settings of their home Internet router fixes the problem. Switching the router from using the ISPs default DNS service to a faster, more efficient public DNS gives an immediate and noticeable improvement in browsing performance. Pages load faster, and the whole online experience seems, and is, snappier.
Making this change is something you can do yourself in just a few minutes, or I can do it for you just as quickly. There’s nothing to download, no software to install or maintain, nothing to buy, nothing to subscribe to or register for. And it’s free!
To read more about DNS and why you should consider switching to a public DNS, check out these two excellent suppliers of public DNS:
I customarily configure the networks of all my clients to use OpenDNS, and I use it myself on my home networks. I’ve never had a problem and the browsing speed I get using my local ISP is noticeably faster with OpenDNS than when using the DNS the ISP provides by default.
Since I first wrote this column for subscribers to my Mac-Aide Tip-of-the-Month newsletter, the famous New York Times technology columnist David Pogue praised OpenDNS in his blog this week. Read his excellent take on why this is a no-brainer upgrade for all Internet users at his blog here.
Give it a try if you’re up to it, or let’s work on it together. It should make a big difference in your online experience, no matter which ISP you have. And remember, it’s FREE!
This tip from Mike Sullivan at Mac-Aide.com, a Mac expert offering training and consulting for Apple users in the Kissimmee/Orlando, FL area.
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