Comments on: Alternate DNS Servers

By: Rotaboy

Rotaboy — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 09:58:05 +0000

Hi all,
To check how fast the DNS is, here is a tool that i found.

http://www.codeproject.com/KB/IP/DNSTester.aspx

A tool that can be used to analyse your DNS performance. It checks the timing of DNS requests between two DNS servers, and displays the results. Download the tool and enter your DNS.

By: Dustin

Dustin — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 06:06:14 +0000

No. The 4.2.2.x servers ARE Anycasted, but they ARE owned by L3, not “many different companies/organizations”.

Genuity, GTEI, etc are all L3, not other companies.

By: georgie

georgie — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 23:27:36 +0000

The 4.2.2.x servers are run by many different companies/organizations. They use anycast to determine the geographically closest DNS server to you using your IP address.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anycast

By: Preston Lewis

Preston Lewis — Wed, 14 May 2008 00:22:22 +0000

4.2.2.1, 4.2.2.2, 4.2.2.3, 4.2.2.4, 4.2.2.5 belong to Level3, a CLEC are are available for anyone to use. They aren’t the fastest, not the best, but they are easy to remember and they always seem to work. I personally would not recommend you use them on a daily basis since OpenDNS and your own ISP DNS servers generally are faster and better but when all else fails, Level3’s DNS servers are there, reliable, free etc.

By: Rick

Rick — Mon, 31 Dec 2007 03:03:33 +0000

I found a new free service by UltraDNS the largest managed DNS service provider out there called DNS Advantage which is much better. Check it out http://www.dnsadvantage.com

By: David Kittell

David Kittell — Sat, 01 Dec 2007 11:06:45 +0000

Personally I use OpenDNS and BrowserSafe DNS
That way I don’t have to rely on my ISP.

http://www.browsesafe.com/instructions.html
https://www.opendns.com/start?device=windows-xp

By: ascendant

ascendant — Mon, 08 Jan 2007 05:05:47 +0000

The DNS server at 4.2.2.1 is part of a group with similar addresses at 4.2.2.x where x is 1-6.

You may want to ping them all and see which one is fastest for you. 4.2.2.2 is fastest for me and …1 is slowest by more than a few ms.

By: Raph Mickey

Raph Mickey — Tue, 02 Jan 2007 00:59:46 +0000

I actually used this for another purpose - my ISP cached name server settings for one of my domains, and I was in a hurry to work with the new host, so on my ADSL modem i changed the primary DNS server to 4.2.2.1 and flushed the local cache and it was all sorted. What is really remarkable is that 4.2.2.1 is FASTER than my ISP’s DNS.

By: pingy

pingy — Fri, 22 Apr 2005 21:44:49 +0000

so M$ Loseblows is now a caching name server?

instead of using FileZilla as a network diagnostic tool one might consider some gems like mtr and dig. although presumably all of these would’ve worked had you fed them an IP address instead of a name to resolve.

By: Alex

Alex — Tue, 19 Apr 2005 18:50:46 +0000

That sounds like good advice, Mike. However, from what I’ve read, Comcast only uses two DNS servers nationwide (!). So, of course, when those went down, it took their entire network went down. But, more than that, those DNS servers could be in Oregon for all I know and I can’t be sure they really would be faster than a 3rd-party DNS server :-/.