Hyderabad Blues: [HM:258544] Increase Your Browsing Speed by Changing DNS Settings

I was facing slow browsing speed at home although speed test was showing good bandwidth. Then I tried updating DNS settings on router level as per this https://developers.google.com/speed/public-dns/ article and Booooooom. Browsing is much faster after this update. Thanks Google!

Why does DNS matter?

The Domain Name System (DNS) protocol is an important part of the web's infrastructure, serving as the Internet's phone book: every time you visit a website, your computer performs a DNS lookup. Complex pages often require multiple DNS lookups before they start loading, so your computer may be performing hundreds of lookups a day.

Try it out

Configure your network settings to use the IP addresses 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4 as your DNS servers.

Or, read our configuration instructions (IPv6 addresses supported too).

If you decide to try Google Public DNS, your client programs will perform all DNS lookups using Google Public DNS.

In addition to traditional DNS over UDP or TCP, we also provide DNS-over-HTTPS API.

Google Public DNS IP addresses

The Google Public DNS IP addresses (IPv4) are as follows:

8.8.8.8

8.8.4.4

The Google Public DNS IPv6 addresses are as follows:

2001:4860:4860::8888

2001:4860:4860::8844

You can use either address as your primary or secondary DNS server. You can specify both addresses, but do not specify the same address as both primary and secondary.

Windows

DNS settings are specified in the TCP/IP Properties window for the selected network connection.

Example: Changing DNS server settings on Windows 7

Go to the Control Panel.

Click Network and Internet > Network and Sharing Center > Change adapter settings.

Select the connection for which you want to configure Google Public DNS. For example:

To change the settings for an Ethernet connection, right-click Local Area Connection > Properties.

To change the settings for a wireless connection, right-click Wireless Network Connection > Properties.

If you are prompted for an administrator password or confirmation, type the password or provide confirmation.

Select the Networking tab. Under This connection uses the following items, select Internet Protocol Version 4 (TCP/IPv4) or Internet Protocol Version 6 (TCP/IPv6) and then click Properties.

Click Advanced and select the DNS tab. If there are any DNS server IP addresses listed there, write them down for future reference, and remove them from this window.

Click OK.

Select Use the following DNS server addresses. If there are any IP addresses listed in the Preferred DNS server or Alternate DNS server, write them down for future reference.

Replace those addresses with the IP addresses of the Google DNS servers:

For IPv4: 8.8.8.8 and/or 8.8.4.4.

For IPv6: 2001:4860:4860::8888 and/or 2001:4860:4860::8844.

For IPv6-only: you can use Google Public DNS64 instead of the IPv6 addresses in the previous point.

Restart the connection you selected in step 3.

Test that your setup is working correctly; see Test your new settings below.

Repeat the procedure for additional network connections you want to change.

Routers

Every router uses a different user interface for configuring DNS server settings; we provide only a generic procedure below. For more information, please consult your router documentation.

Note: Some ISPs hard-code their DNS servers into the equipment they provide; if you are using such a device, you will not be able to configure it to use Google Public DNS. Instead, you can configure each of the computers connected to the router, as described above.

To change your settings on a router:

In your browser, enter the IP address to access the router's administration console.

When prompted, enter the password to access network settings.

Find the screen in which DNS server settings are specified.

If there are IP addresses specified in the fields for the primary and seconday DNS servers, write them down for future reference.

Replace those addresses with the Google IP addresses:

For IPv4: 8.8.8.8 and/or 8.8.4.4.

For IPv6: 2001:4860:4860::8888 and/or 2001:4860:4860::8844.

For IPv6-only: you can use Google Public DNS64 instead of the IPv6 addresses in the previous point.

Save and exit.

Restart your browser.

Test that your setup is working correctly; see Test your new settings below.

Some routers use separate fields for all eight parts of IPv6 addresses and cannot accept the :: IPv6 abbreviation syntax. For such fields enter:

2001:4860:4860:0:0:0:0:8888

2001:4860:4860:0:0:0:0:8844

Expand the 0 entries to 0000 if four hex digits are required.

Test your new settings

To test that the Google DNS resolver is working:

From your browser, enter a hostname URL (such as http://www.google.com/). If it resolves correctly, bookmark the page, and try accessing the page from the bookmark.

If you are using Google Public DNS64 on an IPv6-only system, repeat the above test with an IPv4-only hostname URL (such as http://ipv4.google.com/).

If all of these tests work, everything is working correctly. If not, go to step 2.

From your browser, type in a fixed IP address. You can use http://216.218.228.119/ (which points to the test-ipv6.com website) as the URL.¹

If you are using Google Public DNS64 on an IPv6-only system, use http://[64:ff9b::d8da:e477]/ as the URL instead. If this test does not work, you do not have access to a NAT64 gateway at the reserved prefix 64:ff9b::/96 and cannot use Google Public DNS64.

If you are using an IPv6-only system without Google Public DNS64, use http://[2001:470:1:18::119]/ as the URL instead.

If this works correctly, bookmark the page, and try accessing the page from the bookmark. If these tests work (but step 1 fails), then there is a problem with your DNS configuration; check the steps above to make sure you have configured everything correctly. If these tests do not work, go to step 3.

Roll back the DNS changes you made and run the tests again. If the tests still do not work, then there is a problem with your network settings; contact your ISP or network administrator for assistance.

If you encounter any problems after setting Google Public DNS as your resolver, please run the diagnostic procedure.

¹ Google thanks Jason Fesler for granting permission to use test-ipv6.com URLs for browser DNS testing purposes.

Switch back to your old DNS settings

If you had not previously configured any customized DNS servers, to switch back to your old settings, in the window in which you specified the Google IP addresses, select the option to enable obtaining DNS server addresses automatically, and/or delete the Google IP addresses. This will revert your settings to using your ISP's default servers.

If you need to manually specify any addresses, use the procedures above to specify the old IP addresses.

If necessary, restart your system.

Junaid Tahir
www.DailyTenMinutes.com