How To Benchmark The Fastest DNS Server From Your Location

We have talked about several alternatives to replace the DNS addresses provided by our ISP. Many interesting comments and recommendations comes from users around the internet.

But did you know, if the DNS server located too far from where you live, it will make your internet speed become worse. Although the reputations of that DNS provider very excellent and had a great achievements, it will not be able to improve the situation.

So, in today's article, I will show you how to specify a DNS server which is the fastest to use based on where you live and thus you can improve your internet speed.

Steve Gibson from grc.com has develop a small portable utility called 'DNS Benchmark', a unique, comprehensive, accurate and free Windows (and Linux/Wine) utility to determine the exact performance of local and remote DNS nameservers.

In this test I have setup DNS addresses into my computer with Google Public DNS and let's see how to perform this and what the result is.

1. First, you need to download the utility from here: http://www.grc.com/dev/DNSBench.exe
2. Then launch it, no need to install, it is a portable. The utility will scan your computer for internet configurations immediately after that. Wait for several seconds until it finished, the GRC logo located on the top right will stop rotating means the scan has completed.



3. Then, click at 'Nameservers' tab and click 'Run Benchmark'. The GRC logo will starts spinning again and it will stop after the benchmark completed.



4. After the benchmark completed, you can see a chart displayed like the above image. To see the details about the benchmarking results and determine which DNS server is the fastest comparing with your current DNS, just click at 'Tabular Data' tab.



5. There you go, the results is sorted by the fastest DNS first, for Google Public DNS the results is quite impressive. To see the summary, comments and suggestions about your current DNS, click at 'Conclusions' tab.

So, from now on, you can determine which DNS server/provider is the best and the fastest for you to use based on where you live, not from what you read on the internet but from the intensive test that you've performed.