Is Google DNS better than my ISP provided DNS?
There is a lot of hoopla around Google’s new DNS service offering. Google’s intentions are worthy, in their effort to make the “web faster” – and DNS services is just one part of the whole equation. However, just how much faster would your web surfing/internet enjoyment be with Google’s new DNS service.
Steve Gibson from Gibson Research Corporation aims to help answer that question. Gibson has created a VERY nice benchmarking tool for DNS, entitled, oddly enough, “DNS Benchmark”. Gibson is not new to the “killer utils” scene. He has released some very nice tools which can be found on the Gibson Research Corporation Website.
So how does Google DNS servers stack up against our lovely 4.2.2.1 and 4.2.2.2? Not so great. The screenshot tells the story.
In addition to testing response time/lag, the true killer of your internet experience, DNS Benchmark will also test reliability – in other words, how many times did the DNS server not answer. In one test, I found that 4.2.2.2, was 2% more reliable than my ISP DNS servers. Of course, not a huge difference, but noteworthy.
So, before you go switching over to Google DNS services or any other DNS servers, give “DNS Benchmark” a run. You may find there are some better DNS servers to be had out there on the inter-webs (man – i really do detest that word.)
Download DNS Benchmark by Steve Gibson
