Benchmark and Optimize DNS with Namebench

So you probably saw Google’s DNS servers… well if you’re wondering how they stack up against other public servers you might want to check out namebench.

Their ‘Elevator Pitch’:

Are you a power-user with 5 minutes to spare? Do you want a faster internet experience?

Try out namebench. It hunts down the fastest DNS servers available for your computer to use. namebench runs a fair and thorough benchmark using your web browser history, tcpdump output, or standardized datasets in order to provide an individualized recommendation. namebench is completely free and does not modify your system in any way. This project began as a 20% project at Google.

namebench runs on Mac OS X, Windows, and UNIX, and is available with a graphical user interface as well as a command-line interface.

http://code.google.com/p/namebench/

I ran it and set up my router to use the new settings and now lookups respond much faster. Try it
Response Distribution Chart (Full)

Mean Response Duration

Fastest Individual Response Duration

Response Distribution Chart (First 200ms)