Does OpenDNS Really Speedup Web Pages?

Step 1: Open Command Prompt (Start -> Run, Type cmd and press Enter).

Step 2: Type prompt $t - That changes the DOS prompt to the current time, we will need this to calculate the time it takes to execute any DOS command.

Step 3: Now run the following command where 208.67.222.222 is the standard IP address of OpenDNS server.

nslookup www.google.com 208.67.222.222



You can find the time OpenDNS takes to resolved the address by calculating the difference between the two timestamps.

Step 4: Run the same command again but replacing it with the IP Address of your local ISP’s DNS server – in my case, it is 125.22.47.125 (Airtel).

nslookup www.google.com 125.22.47.125



As you can see, the DNS server of the local ISP (Airtel) was slightly faster than OpenDNS in resolving the IP address of www.google.com – something good to know but the difference is insignificant and there are plenty of good reasons to continue using OpenDNS.

Update: You can execute all these commands in a batch file for more accurate results.

ver | time
nslookup www.google.com 208.67.222.222
ver | time
nslookup www.google.com 125.22.47.125
ver | time

This is based on a comment from Resolver – "I found that my ISP’s DNS server is much faster than OpenDNS… because at the moment there are only OpenDNS Server for Europe in London. I’ll wait until OpenDNS Server are in Germany."

well did you type it in to the dns servers slot or ip. It goes into dns server textbox.

I does work as long as you don't start changing any configuration settings..

john as soon as i typed those numbers in to my settingd my negear has not been able to get a connection since... WHY?

OpenDNS delivers a faster, safer, smarter DNS.

Try for yourself. The speed benefits vary by your situation and network, but for most, they are notable, for the reasons indicated in my earlier post.

Reliability is also important. http://system.opendns.com/ documents ours, and when major outages occur (see http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/ATT-Responds...), the advantages skyrocket.

Content filtering (phishing, optional otherwise) are built on top of the foundations of speed and reliability -- but up to you why you choose OpenDNS. I just hope you do.

Yes, OpenDNS is a business. So are eBay, Google, and thousands of other useful services... not sure of your point. By providing a useful service, OpenDNS gets people to use our service, which helps our business. If we're not useful, no business.

I'll end by simply saying: try for yourself. It's simple and free.

208.67.222.222
208.67.220.220

Write down your previous settings, so you can switch back anytime.

I don't think you'll want to. ;-)

John Roberts
OpenDNS

OpenDNS is another attempt to centralize and control an aspect of the internet that was fully intended, by overt design, to be open and decentralized. Is OpenDNS's business model based on altruism? Of course not. Do you see a .org at the end of their name and a not-for-profit designation?

The speed benefits of OpenDNS are laughable to anyone with any knowledge of how DNS operates. Seriously, these guys must walk around their offices giggling to each other that folks out in the world perceive some sort of speed benefit. Anyone that does either had horribly overloaded DNS servers to begin with, or are perceiving a gain via cognitive dissonance.

Bottom line - want to block ads and phishing sites? Get any halfway decent internet security package. Need faster DNS because you think your ISP's DNS servers are bad? Pick one. Any one. Google "fast DNS" and pick from the oodles of servers out there that people brand as "fast".

OpenDNS is another case of the Internet's Emperor and his new clothes.

[Comment ID #28875 Will Be Quoted Here]
If you come up with a method Martin, then let me know and I'll do the same analysis, so we can average our results.
Maybe we should rope in some of our joint readers to get more data points....I can feel a joint post coming on!

Good question Everton. I was also thinking about ways to measure the gain in speed.. We are talking about milliseconds here, right ? Should not make that much of a difference to the human eye..

John

Is there anyway of actually testing which way is faster, rather than just trying to see if pages are loading faster or slower than I can blink?

I seem to remember using a site to see what DNS each of the main UK servers was holding for my domain, when i moved servers recently and was waiting for my DNS to propogate.

Busy day at ISPCON, so just getting back to you.

http://blog.opendns.com/2006/08/28/london-serve...
has a picture of the physical servers, but that's hardly the point. ;-)

Cache is what we are talking about
http://www.opendns.com/what/#faster

John Roberts
OpenDNS