Web Speed Boost from Google DNS and OpenDNS
- Thread starter Tom172
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Hungry Man
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- Jul 21, 2011
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Littlebits
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- May 3, 2011
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Comodo's new SecureDNS that is currently in beta also supports this new functionality.
I think people are misunderstanding what this does though...
If you use your ISP's DNS, you're fine. However, if you use any other DNS service, you are very likely not being sent to the servers nearest you for content delivery because external DNS services up to now haven't had the capability to send any localization data as part of the service. You have just been another faceless user of the DNS service.
How does this impact you? If you are downloading something, (or accessing any service that uses localized CDN severs, such as viewing YouTube videos) your external DNS service will more or less just direct you to a server in your part of the world. However, the server it directs you to may be hundreds of miles from you, regardless of the fact that there may be servers considerably closer to you. Since the DNS spec for external services doesn't account for the users location, it has no way of knowing it should send you to a nearer server.
Now however, it is able to say, "user is located here, this is the closest server"... This should allow your download to be quicker than a service that does not supply this location data, based on the fact that the server is closer. (Note that this doesn't take into account server load, so if the server closest to you is near maximum capacity, your download may actually be quicker from a more distant server)
This is the reason so many people have thought that DNS affects your throughput. (Which it doesn't...) They say, if I use my ISP's DNS, I get xxx download speed, but if I use OpenDNS, I only get xx! So it's obviously affecting my download speed! Yes, your ISP is able to supply location data, so the load balancing scripts can often send you to a closer server. (but as I mentioned, closer does not always mean quicker)
I think people are misunderstanding what this does though...
If you use your ISP's DNS, you're fine. However, if you use any other DNS service, you are very likely not being sent to the servers nearest you for content delivery because external DNS services up to now haven't had the capability to send any localization data as part of the service. You have just been another faceless user of the DNS service.
How does this impact you? If you are downloading something, (or accessing any service that uses localized CDN severs, such as viewing YouTube videos) your external DNS service will more or less just direct you to a server in your part of the world. However, the server it directs you to may be hundreds of miles from you, regardless of the fact that there may be servers considerably closer to you. Since the DNS spec for external services doesn't account for the users location, it has no way of knowing it should send you to a nearer server.
Now however, it is able to say, "user is located here, this is the closest server"... This should allow your download to be quicker than a service that does not supply this location data, based on the fact that the server is closer. (Note that this doesn't take into account server load, so if the server closest to you is near maximum capacity, your download may actually be quicker from a more distant server)
This is the reason so many people have thought that DNS affects your throughput. (Which it doesn't...) They say, if I use my ISP's DNS, I get xxx download speed, but if I use OpenDNS, I only get xx! So it's obviously affecting my download speed! Yes, your ISP is able to supply location data, so the load balancing scripts can often send you to a closer server. (but as I mentioned, closer does not always mean quicker)
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