The fastest public DNS providers for 2015

Public DNS services can offer interesting advantages over DNS servers inherently used by Internet providers. These advantages are not only limited to speed but also offer additional functionality.

So you can have, for example, filtering options, directly block malicious web pages or phishing sites, but also have network or national bypass choices.

A clear example of the above is that ISPs in Spain, which recently blocked access to Pirate Bay at a level DNS. A solution for Spanish users is to switch to a global DNS service to regain access to the website.

Of course, there are also other benefits. Some ISPs may show you their own custom error pages in a wrong search (instead of the known 404 error) in order to earn extra revenue. If you prefer to see your browser's home page instead of your ISP, then switching DNS providers is one-way.

As for her speed, may not seem important at first, but because DNS is one of the cornerstones of the Internet and is widely used throughout Internet connections, you may be able to load your pages and resources faster and more consistently to improve your overall navigation.

There is also a third important point: h protection of private life. Once the selected DNS provider processes all of your internet connections, you automatically reveal information that you may not want to be accessed by certain companies.

But this is another story that we will not analyze in this article. We suggest you check the privacy policy data των υπηρεσιών (privacy policy of services) that you are interested in to learn how to handle it.

In this article we will use a program called Namebench, and is a DNS benchmarking system. The following settings were used as a reference:

• Query Data Source: Top 2000 Alexa websites (Questions to the top 2000 Alexa websites)
• Number of queries: 250 (250 query count)
• Including Global DNS Providers (Including DNS Worldwide Providers)
• Include censorship checks
• Health Check Performance: fast (Performance Check: speed)

In addition to these settings, the following providers were added to the nameservers directory:

• Censur Fri DNS: 89.233.43.71, 91.239.100.100
• Comodo Secure DNS: 8.26.56.26, 8.20.247.20
• DNS Watch: 84.200.69.80, 84.200.70.40
• Free DNS: 37.235.1.174. 37.235.1.177
• Green Team DNS: 81.218.119.11, 209.88.198.133
• Level 3: 209.244.0.3, 209.244.0.4
• Norton ConnectSafe: 199.85.126.10, 199.85.127.10
• Open Nothing: 107.150.40.234, 50.116.23.211
• Safe DNS: 195.46.39.39, 195.46.39.40
• Smart Viper: 208.76.50.50, 208.76.51.51

The following providers are inherently included in the program:

• DNS Advantage: 156.154.70.1, 156.154.71.1
• Dyn DNS: 216.146.35.35, 216.146.36.36
• Google DNS: 8.8.8.8, 8.8.4.4
• Open DNS Home: 208.67.222.222, 208.67.220.220

In your test, it makes sense to include DNS peripherals as well, as they are likely to provide faster access from global providers.

Note: It is recommended that you do your own testing after reading this entire article. The reason is that access time and overall performance may vary depending on your location around the world. A provider in France, for example, may work well for users in Central Europe, but not so well for someone from Australia or Japan. It all depends on where you are.

Let's look at our own results:

As you can see, there are significant differences between providers. While the average value is not always the best measure to compare, you will notice that the fastest response time of some providers is slower than the average response time from the fastest providers.

It's easy to do it your own test and a benchmarking to find the fastest DNS provider for you. Just do the following:

1. Download Namebench. It is available for Windows, Linux and Mac OSX.
2. Run the program and adjust the preferences as shown in the screenshot above. In addition, select “Include best available regional DNS services” (Including the best available DNS services in your area).
3. Wait for the benchmark to complete its entire process. This will take several minutes and we recommend that you do not use the computer during this space in order to avoid inconsistencies in the results.
4. The results will appear in a local tab in your browser. There you can find program recommendations on how to configure DNS providers in your system. Also, you are given information about websites that appear to be malfunctioning when using the DNS service.

You have decided to change DNS provider;

Let's see how you can do it. There are two basic alternatives to changing DNS providers: you can change them on your individual devices, on your router, or on your server. The latter has the advantage that all devices connected to the router or server will automatically use the service provider of your choice.

We recommend that you see the instructions on the site Open DNS  for this. They cover all scenarios, including home routers (routers), computers, laptops and mobile devices. Note that you will have to change the corresponding IPs if you do not select OpenDNS as your host of choice.

You can, if you wish, share your results with us.