DNS Benchmark
Domain Name System Benchmark Utility
Are slow DNS servers slowing down your Internet experience?
The Domain Name System:
The Domain Name System (DNS) converts easily remembered domain names (like grc.com, nbc.com, and amazon.com) into their equivalent IP addresses. Although you could enter "72.21.210.250" into your web browser if you wanted to visit amazon.com, entering the domain name "amazon.com" is much easier. The Domain Name System was created to lookup and translate domain names into their respective IP addresses.
If you did happen to know and use Amazon's IP address directly, you would arrive at Amazon's web site somewhat more quickly because your web browser and computer would be spared the extra work and time required to query the DNS system to "resolve" Amazon's domain name into its IP address.
However, domain names are so much more convenient that the question becomes: How fast (or slow) and reliable (or not) are your ISP's DNS servers compared with others on the Internet? Many Internet power users stopped using their ISP's DNS servers after discovering that they were slow and unreliable. Is your internet access being continually hampered by slow, error-prone, or intermittent DNS servers operated by your ISP? And if so, what can you do to improve things? This DNS Benchmark can provide the raw data to answer all of these questions and more.
Please see the comprehensive documentation and support pages
on the GRC.com web site to learn how to use this powerful
benchmark program and how to interpret its results:
http://www.GRC.com/dns/benchmark.htm
One VERY IMPORTANT usage note before you begin:
To obtain the most accurate results, the DNS Benchmark should be the only program actively using your network connection while it is performing the benchmark testing. Active web surfing or file downloading will almost certainly have a profound impact on your network's DNS access performance. (The degree of such impact can be useful to know as well, but that is a different test than "quiet network" DNS access.) Therefore, for the most accurate results, please suspend all other network activity for the few minutes required to run the benchmarking test.
About this GRC Freeware:
If you are not already familiar with my free and commercial software, you may be puzzled by the small size (only 167,296 bytes) and the simple "no installation" lightweight performance of this Windows application. There is nothing I enjoy more than creating high-quality software; and as you can see from the results, this is not just talk. I hand-craft my software in 100% pure assembly language. Assembly language is the native "machine language" of the Intel processors used in nearly all modern computers. I believe it is worth the extra time and trouble to create lasting, high-quality products.
