Improve Browsing Speed With OpenDNS

9 December, 2009 - 07:00 AM - 7 Comments

In reading up several articles online I found a way to improve the time it takes for my browser to resolve and load websites. I have replaced my ISP DNS servers with OpenDNS and as a result there is a noticeable improvement in how quickly web page DNS names resolve and load in Firefox and Chrome on my home PC.

For free all you have to do is go to Open DNS aand register for a free account. Once you do this you will be provided with 2 DNS name servers to use.

Edit your Network properties for your LAN or Wireless adapter (you can get there by opening Control Panel and opening your Network Connections).

You want to specifically edit the properties for your “Internet Protocol Version 4″ if you are using Vista or Windows 7,

It doesn’t matter if you have your PC set to Obtain an IP automatically or not, you can click “Use the following DNS server addresses” and input the two IP addresses provided by OpenDNS. Click OK and then close out of this screen and your network updates will take effect immediately on Windows XP, Vista or Windows 7. If you are still using an older version of Windows you will have to reboot the machine.

For myself there was a noticeable performance improvement and websites loaded faster because DNS was able to resolve the DNS name (web site name like www.dragonblogger.com) to IP address quicker.

If you also switch to using OpenDNS, let me know if you notice improvement and if you already use it let me know if you like using OpenDNS.

-Dragon Blogger

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Written by Justin Germino (1514 Articles Published)

Working in the IT Industry for over 10 years and specializing in web based technologies. Dragon Blogger has unique insights and opinions to how the internet and web technology works. An Avid movie fan, video game fan and fan of trying anything and everything new.

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Rob

I've been using OpenDNS for a number of years. I set it on my router rather than on individual clients so that everyone connecting to my Internet gets the added benefit.

Not only is it useful as a user, it's very powerful as a web developer because it means I am able to see every new web domain I register very quickly since the DNS propagation is aggressive versus what most Internet Service Provider's own schedule.
.-= Rob´s last blog ..How to: Improve your iPhone signal with a banana =-.

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alan whysall

I have just switched to open DNS from Orange UK's servers and have seen approx 30% improvement in web retrievals. I'm on Win 7.

selfdeprecatehumor

I have used OpenDNS for years and I usually try to set up every router I'm in to use it. It's almost a habit now.
.-= selfdeprecatehumorÂ´s last blog ..Neal Boortz to Obama: Youâ€™re still a douche, but nice Nobel Prize speach bro =-.

Pubudu Kodikara

Its not only fast..... it also our improves security!
.-= Pubudu KodikaraÂ´s last blog ..Customize your Browser With the Official Chrome Extension Gallery =-.

Klaus @ TechPatio

For what it's worth, I get a better response time from the Google DNS servers than from OpenDNS - here in Europe at least. Might be different overseas.
.-= Klaus @ TechPatioÂ´s last blog ..Get Paid To Find Porn â€“ In China =-.

dragonblogger

Here in Arizona with Cox Broadband, pings to OpenDNS reveal 32ms response times from my computer, but pings to Google DNS servers yield 48 - 50ms response times. Though that doesn't mean that Google DNS doesn't "lookup" faster and return a response faster. After all my ISP has the fastest response times of 7ms on a ping yet doesn't perform the lookup as fast. I will switch to Google Public DNS and see if I notice a difference.

I just tested Google DNS instead of OpenDNS and it is noticeably slower in the browser "resolving DNS" when loading websites, I measure by opening 20 tabs of websites at the same time and Google DNS definately resolves the sites slower than OpenDNS for me. Question, did you sign into OpenDNS and get IP's for your own DNS, or did you just use mine. I know they provide the closest DNS servers to your IP Subnet, just trying to see which way you chose the IP's to use.