O2's DNS?

Before you tell me to google this, I have.
From what I gather DNS helps take a domain name like google.com and turns it into a code which is used to locate the website's server thus granting you access/loading the website.

Apparently O2's DNS server is horrible.

Firstly, what's DNS.
Secondly, O2 has terrible DNS- what will this effect and are there any resolutions (I heard something like OpenDNS somewhere?)

Thanks

In reply to a post by cosmicflame1:

Firstly, what's DNS.

Google DNS and try the first result.

Ok, done that, now O2 has terrible DNs, does that mean internet browsing will be slower? Because it takes more time to access each website?

O2 DNS servers seem to have a problem at the moment for some users and not others. This happens occasionally to other ISPs as well, though this one does seem to be taking a fair while to sort out.

The two most popular alternatives are OpenDNS and Google DNS. Many people use those all the time anyway.

Back in November 2011 I don't recall having problems browsing the web (which I figure is what DNS is for?) so chances are I still won't have problems? Or will I?

P.S Sorry if I'm asking so many questions, in a normal circumstance I would wait and solve problems as they occur, not pre-emptively. But after 2 months of Virgin's horrible service I'm keen to getting working again. Not to mention I have to go to France the day we switch to O2, so another week waiting to see if O2 works

You can use differnet DNS if o2s are [censored] anyways.

That's a relief, though hopefully I don't screw up my settings or something.

Google DNS if O2 DNS I should think, anything with google on it is good

OpenDNS : 208.67.222.222 & 208.67.220.220
Google DNS: 8.8.8.8 & 8.8.4.4
Norton DNS: 198.153.192.50 & 198.153.194.50

In reply to a post by cosmicflame1:

Before you tell me to google this, I have.
From what I gather DNS helps take a domain name like google.com and turns it into a code which is used to locate the website's server thus granting you access/loading the website.

Apparently O2's DNS server is horrible.

Not really. There's a kind of 'meme' on the Be/O2 network where some people like to constantly claim the DNS servers are useless. It's not true. They've had a couple of issues over the years but never for long. They are also not the fastest servers but it's not like they get used very much. Even a complicated web page probably only requires half a dozen queries so whether the answers come back in 1 millisecond or 2 milliseconds is irrelevant.

I think it's mostly just one of those things that some of the 'geek crowd' like to trot out in an attempt to make themselves sound clever. For the vast majority of O2 and Be users the 'official' DNS are pefectly fine 99.9% of the time.

It's worth noting that by default all versions of Windows cache their DNS look-ups anyway. That means for visiting your normal sites it's likely that you wouldn't notice issues with the servers since your machine wouldn't bother to query them most of the time. You can see this by running 'ipconfig /displaydns' at a command prompt. Look at the 'Time to live' value. This is how long Windows will store the lookup before resorting to a server query. This is primarily determined from the original server record I think but a quick check on my work machine shows most of my records have a lifetime of several hours.

That wouldn't save you from a total DNS server failure lasting many hours but means you'd likely not notice a glitch or even Saturday's outage in most cases. It certainly dismisses any idea that faster DNS servers make a difference - 99% of the time the look ups are coming from your local machine anyway with Windows.

So in summary:If you want to change to different DNS servers then feel free. I just don't think it's necessary..at least with Windows. I think that Linux has a cache but is not active by default.

Edited by Andrue (Mon 05-Mar-12 14:42:48)

And personally I would avoid the Google DNS like the plague. More instances of their slack attitude to personal privacy in the news today.