DNS Servers

kmufc77 · 8 May 2012 at 23:30

Is Open DNS still considered the best for DNS servers, or are there any better options?.

Im getting fed up with VM at the moment.

Craig321 · 8 May 2012 at 23:32

Use Google DNS.

8.8.8.8
8.8.4.4

Seems to be better than Open DNS for me & easier to remember

Less intrusive by default as well.

kmufc77 · 8 May 2012 at 23:36

Thanks ill give it a try

bledd · 9 May 2012 at 11:18

I use the google dns, simply because it's easy to remember

Hostile-17 · 9 May 2012 at 11:59

bledd. said:
I use the google dns, simply because it's easy to remember

+1

Dist · 9 May 2012 at 12:11

Personally I just use the DNS servers provided by virgin media. Based on a DNS benchmark they were several times faster than any other DNS server. The google servers were about middle of the pack, nothing special.

Sp00n · 9 May 2012 at 12:36

My tests (using namebench) show Google to be pretty much top of the bunch in terms of speed.

However I'm with bledd. it's just easy to remember.

Dist · 9 May 2012 at 12:51

I used the GRC benchmark http://www.grc.com/dns/benchmark.htm

I admit the last time I used it was just after the Google DNS servers went live so they could have improved since then, but that the time they were a bit 'meh'.

I do agree about being easy to remember though, and if you ever need to enter DNS details they can be handy, but if the ISP provides DNS details via DHCP when your router connects then that is often perfectly fine.

Mikey · 4 Dec 2012 at 18:12

Craig321 said:
Use Google DNS.

8.8.8.8
8.8.4.4

Seems to be better than Open DNS for me & easier to remember

Less intrusive by default as well.

Tried using google at work with our cloud proxy solution (don't ask :rolleyes:

) and searches were coming out in german.

So looking for a decent UK based DNS server.

Daisy recommended their DNS servers, but Daisy sooner they go bust the better! Firewall is doing the forwarding requests, although I'm tempted just to go back to root hints...

V_R · 4 Dec 2012 at 20:39

Sp00n said:
My tests (using namebench) show Google to be pretty much top of the bunch in terms of speed.

However I'm with bledd. it's just easy to remember.

Same here, been using Google's DNS for a while now and they've been great.

ASE001 · 5 Dec 2012 at 11:46

I've been trying Google DNS 8.8.4.4 for a few days and although DNS Benchmark shows Virgin media’s DNS servers as being the faster. The latency is less noticeable with the Google DNS server when initially opening a web page. I don't really understand this since the benchmarks say otherwise?

Another major issue I see with using some of these DNS service providers is security, how do I know they resolve the FQN to the correct IP. It's very easy to alter a DNS record to point at doggy site! How do I know that the resolved IP has not been changed? Is there way to return IP's for security sensitive sites (I.e. banking) against a know list or a know reputable DNS server (I could script!)? Are there any bolt in security tools for internet explorer or Firefox that checks these IP's?

Dist · 5 Dec 2012 at 12:49

ASE001 said:
Another major issue I see with using some of these DNS service providers is security, how do I know they resolve the FQN to the correct IP. It's very easy to alter a DNS record to point at doggy site! How do I know that the resolved IP has not been changed? Is there way to return IP's for security sensitive sites (I.e. banking) against a know list or a know reputable DNS server (I could script!)? Are there any bolt in security tools for internet explorer or Firefox that checks these IP's?

If you want to check an IP returned from a DNS provider you may not trust against a trustworthy DNS provider to see if it's correct, why not just use the trustworthy provider in the first place?