DNS which servers to use?

liamcrane · 15 Jun 2011 at 10:37

Morning all

Just curious to know if anyone uses any other DNS servers other than the ones provided by your ISP? Is there any real benefit by using say Open DNS?

Thanks guys

AbsenceJam · 15 Jun 2011 at 10:40

8.8.8.8
8.8.4.4
^ Google's.

And yes there is, ISP DNS servers tend to perform pretty poorly and update slowly. You can set your router to use other servers so you don't need to do it on each client.

DJMK4 · 15 Jun 2011 at 10:44

Hmm, I choose to use OpenDNS rather than Googles public DNS.

http://www.opendns.com/

HEADRAT · 15 Jun 2011 at 10:52

Yeah OpenDNS

liamcrane · 15 Jun 2011 at 10:53

Cool thanks for that guys, im just using whatever are sky's standard DNS servers at the mo but is the only real benefit of changing these just for quicker general browsing speeds?

HEADRAT · 15 Jun 2011 at 11:09

I find OpenDNS faster than the Talk Talk DNS servers, and more reliable

HEADRAT

BloodyL · 15 Jun 2011 at 11:12

OpenDNS also allows content filtering, so if you create an account on the website and register your IP to it, you can filter out any content you choose in the control panel.

3dcandy · 15 Jun 2011 at 11:14

I will change when I move to Sky - BT doesnt' allow you to change dns servers easily..

ethos · 15 Jun 2011 at 11:31

3dcandy said:
I will change when I move to Sky - BT doesnt' allow you to change dns servers easily..

Just change it on the client if the router is locked down...

3dcandy · 15 Jun 2011 at 11:48

yup, I have...but as the laptop and phones use dhcp it's kinda moot point and I can't be arsed changing them all

Sin_Chase · 15 Jun 2011 at 12:00

Use whatever responds fastest.

Google's, OpenDNS et al are pretty fast but my local ISP DNS has a third of the response time so I use them instead.

Sin_Chase · 15 Jun 2011 at 12:01

3dcandy said:
yup, I have...but as the laptop and phones use dhcp it's kinda moot point and I can't be arsed changing them all

You can still specify a manual DNS with DHCP providing IP/GW.

brad82 · 15 Jun 2011 at 12:21

Ive got a Win Server 2008 box running DHCP and DNS for all my needs, it caches commonly used DNS to speed lookups up, however it grabs all these from Googles DNS

Also I love being able to use the hostnames of my PCs on all the PCs in the house instead of editing a hosts file every 5 seconds

liamcrane · 15 Jun 2011 at 12:53

If i was to use open dns would i have to just log into the router and change it manually that way?

Qu3 · 15 Jun 2011 at 14:09

liamcrane said:
If i was to use open dns would i have to just log into the router and change it manually that way?

Yes, if you want all the networked PCs to be given OpenDNS addresses for dns queries.

ecksmen · 15 Jun 2011 at 14:16

Use GRC DNS bench to find out which DNS server is best for you...

http://www.grc.com/dns/benchmark.htm

memyselfandi · 15 Jun 2011 at 14:48

I'm got one OpenDNS and one Google DNS server listed on most of my systems.

I used to just have OpenDNS but I had a couple of times where I had DNS issues so by using both means at least one will respond.

opethdisciple · 15 Jun 2011 at 15:04

3dcandy said:
I will change when I move to Sky - BT doesnt' allow you to change dns servers easily..

You can set the dns server on the local adapter.

3dcandy · 15 Jun 2011 at 16:30

yeah, I know....but then stuff attached via the homehub doesn't resolve as well. It's swings and roundabouts...I shall setup a dns server of my own I think with google or opendns aswell

bigredshark · 15 Jun 2011 at 16:47

To be honest, you've got to have a rubbish ISP before their DNS servers aren't doing the job, it's not hard to do well.

If I didn't have a good ISP, I'd probably run my own copy of BIND somewhere, I'd be nervous about outsourcing DNS to a free provider who I don't completely trust both to be honest and have excellent security. Google as a fallback if I had to though.