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Are you a power-user with 5 minutes to spare? Do you want a faster internet experience?

Try out namebench. It hunts down the fastest DNS servers available for your computer to use. namebench runs a fair and thorough benchmark using your web browser history, tcpdump output, or standardized datasets in order to provide an individualized recommendation. namebench is completely free and does not modify your system in any way. This project began as a 20% project at Google.

namebench runs on Mac OS X, Windows, and UNIX, and is available with a graphical user interface as well as a command-line interface.
namebench was written using open-source tools and libraries such as Python, Tkinter, PyObjC, dnspython, jinja2 and graphy.

Screenshots

Here is what the nameserver overview looks like:


Mean Response Duration
Response Distribution Chart (First 200ms) 
There is also a full timescale graph as well.
Command-line version

If you are running the command-line version, you get something that looks like this:
Fastest individual response (in milliseconds):
----------------------------------------------
Scarlet-1 BE ################# 9.97782
SYS-193.121.171. ################## 10.56194
Completel-2 FR ########################### 16.48903
CyberServ PSA NL ############################ 16.87098
OpenDNS ############################# 17.55810
Google Public DN ############################## 18.16297
UltraDNS ############################## 18.30387
Webline BE ###################################### 22.61090
Cesidio-A DE ########################################## 25.56205
Arcor/Vodafone-2 ##################################################### 32.37319

Mean response (in milliseconds):
--------------------------------
UltraDNS ##################### 73.52
OpenDNS ####################### 81.91
Google Public DN ######################### 88.39
Scarlet-1 BE ########################## 92.90
SYS-193.121.171. ############################### 111.16
Arcor/Vodafone-2 #################################### 128.46
Completel-2 FR ####################################### 139.62
Webline BE ############################################## 165.15
Cesidio-A DE ################################################## 180.79
CyberServ PSA NL ##################################################### 191.80

Response Distribution Chart URL (200ms):
----------------------------------------
http://chart.apis.google.com/chart?cht=lxy&chs=720x410&chxt=x,y&chg=10,20&chxr=0,0,200|1,0,100&chd=t:0,16,17,17...

Response Distribution Chart URL (Full):
---------------------------------------
http://chart.apis.google.com/chart?cht=lxy&chs=720x410&chxt=x,y&chg=10,20&chxr=0,0,1631|1,0,100&chd=t:0,2,2,2,2...

Recommended configuration (fastest + nearest):
----------------------------------------------
nameserver 156.154.70.1 # UltraDNS NXDOMAIN Hijacking
nameserver 194.119.228.67 # Scarlet-1 BE
nameserver 193.121.171.135 # SYS-193.121.171.135 

The Tutorial:

Download Namebench:
namebench 1.1 source code (requires Python 2.4-2.7)  
namebench 1.1 for Mac OS X 10.5+  
namebench 1.1 for Windows 


-Extract all files.
-Click on Start Benchmark (dont change any settings).
-Wait for sometime. A html log file will be created.
-Open that html file
-Copy the Primary and secondary server in a notepad.

DNS changing::

If you have broadband

1. Click Start > Control Panel > Network Connections and select your local network.
   
2. On the General tab click Properties > Internet Protocol (TCP/IP).
   
3. Click Properties
   

The Internet Protocol window will appear. Click Use the following DNS server addresses and enter the DNS server(s) you copied in notepad (primary and secondary)

If you have dial-up

1. Click Start>My Computer>Dialup Networking.
   
2. Right-click on your Internet connection. Then select Properties.
   
3. Click the Server Types tab on the window which opens.
   
4. Click TCP/IP Settings.