not robot related. faster internet. (DNS speed testing.)

[dunk]

hey guys,
so this is not robot related but rather internet related.

do you ever suffer from slow response times on your internet connection?
often it is not your connection that is the problem but rather your DNS server.

DNS servers are the machines on the internet that change hostnames into IPaddresses.
eg, societyofrobots.com is at IPaddress 174.120.175.51.
you could type the actual IPaddress of 174.120.175.51 in to your browser but societyofrobots.com is easier to remember.

another way to look at it: DNS servers are the "telephone directories" of the internet.

the problem is, some (but by no means all) ISPs run crap DNS servers.
they can justifiably claim fast up/download speeds in their brochures while the latency of their DNS server gets ignored.

while it is possible test the speed of your DNS servers manually, i was just referred to this nice little script that does it for you:
http://code.google.com/p/namebench/

don't get too hung up on the output. a difference on less than 100ms has a low impact on usability.
if your DNS servers are more than a few hundred ms slower than another option though it might be worth changing.

another thing to note, this script only gives you a snapshot at the time you run the script.
it's probably worth comparing the results at a few different times of day. (or just running it as a test when your connection is particularly sucky.)


happy hacking,

dunk.

[SmAsH]

Did that and one was a fair bit faster than mine, anyway to change which DNS you use?

[madsci1016]

I recommend that everyone use OpenDNS. It's free, faster, and safer. It will block DNS requests to infected sites, and will alert you when you have a virus on your computer trying to call home.  It also protects bad ISPs from redirecting you at there will.

http://www.opendns.com/start/

[Admin]

and will alert you when you have a virus on your computer trying to call home

Thats why you should have a firewall! (I recommend Comodo)

[madsci1016]

and will alert you when you have a virus on your computer trying to call home

Thats why you should have a firewall! (I recommend Comodo)

Actually, few personal firewalls are able to identify mal-traffic outbound, they mostly are concerned with traffic trying to get into your computer. Are you sure Comodo scans outbound traffic for issues?

Also, OpenDNS stops you from visiting known phishing sites. And whats wrong with redundancy?

[Admin]

Any firewall worth its salt will detect outbound data.

What Comodo and others do is informs you when a program tries to connect to the internet, then asks you to allow it or not.

[madsci1016]

Ah yes, the deny all till given approval approach. The reason many people (including myself) hated windows vista, with it's insanely annoying UAC prompts. (Thank goodness win7 lets you adjust this) I tend to avoid these firewalls for the same reason. They work well, till you mistakenly click approve on well disguised malware, or just don't read it well, or it's 4 o'clock on the morning while you are trying to finish a paper and you are willing to click anything to clear it off your screen. (Guilty)

Personally, OpenDNS + Avast AV + firefox with Adblock + the SPI firewall in my router and my network of 5 computers and windows server has been malware free for a long time. OpenDNS will also stop the embedded iframe attacks that have been hitting millions of websites recently, all without running processes on your computer. 

I find individual software firewalls on each computer only cause headaches with new programs and internal file sharing, but redundancy is key for those willing to deal with them.

[Cristi_Neagu]

It told me that my DNS is 70% faster. Didn't see that one coming.

I use Bitdefender's firewall. It scans outbound traffic, inbound traffic, and the antivirus show a blank page with a warning when trying to access an infected page. It has not let me down yet  . Also, the firewall asks you whether you permit a program to connect to the internet, blocks port scans, and detects if a program that is permitted to connect has changed (if it got infected somehow). You can control what protocols a program is permitted to use, and what ports to use. That, in my book, makes one complete firewall.