

Namebench - An Open-source DNS Benchmark Utility - jf
http://code.google.com/p/namebench/

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dschobel
Cool that it considers automatic domain redirection an error:

 _www.google.com. hijacked (google.navigation.opendns.com.) NXDOMAIN
Hijacking_

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carbocation
I ran this against my ISP's DNS as cached by my router, Google's new 8.8.8.8,
Level3's 4.2.2.1 and 4.2.2.2, and OpenDNS.

It performed 200 tests in 1 run, using my 100,000 Firefox bookmarks as its
data source in 'weighted' mode.

My results were as follows: "In this test, Your current primary DNS server [my
router's cache of Comcast's DNS] is 29% Faster than Google Public DNS".

I am in Boston. In ranked order of performance: My router's cache of Comcast
(48.28ms), Google's 8.8.8.8 (62.49ms), OpenDNS (68.14ms), Level3's 4.2.2.1
(94.37ms), Level3's 4.2.2.2 (113.51ms)

*Update - I clarified that I tested my router's cache of Comcast's DNS, not Comcast's DNS servers themselves.

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besologic
200 tests, 1 run. ~33K Firefox items. Weighted.

I was surprised to find my ISP (Cox, San Diego) performed pretty favorably.

Cox (92.73 ms), UltraDNS (100.95 ms), OpenDNS (117.07 ms), Google Public DNS
(197.01 ms)

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jf
I was also surprised to see that my IPS's DNS servers performed so well
against all other services.

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dfranke
It shouldn't be surprising. Your ISP's server serves enough customers that
most popular sites will be cached most of the time, and you're likely to have
a shorter ping time to your ISP's server than to any other.

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lazyant
Slightly off-topic but when I first got my MacBook about two years ago the
networking was awfully slow compared to my Windows or Linux boxes.

I suspected a DNS problem and after installing a local DNS cache server it
improved dramatically, so a local cache-only/forwarder DNS server is another
solution for a faster networking experience.

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jamesk2
I'm getting very different results when I run these tests. At prime time 7 pm
to 9 pm pacific time on weekdays is different than sundays at noon.

