DNS Benchmark
Every page load starts with a DNS lookup. This times eight public resolvers from your connection, right now, over DNS-over-HTTPS, and ranks them by median response. Nothing is sent to us; the queries go straight from your browser to each resolver.
| RESOLVER | ADDRESS | MEDIAN | MIN | MAX | FAILS | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cloudflare | 1.1.1.1 | — | — | — | 0 | Privacy-focused, no query logging beyond 24h |
| 8.8.8.8 | — | — | — | 0 | Large anycast network | |
| Quad9 | 9.9.9.9 | — | — | — | 0 | Blocks known-malicious domains |
| OpenDNS | 208.67.222.222 | — | — | — | 0 | Cisco; optional content filtering |
| AdGuard | 94.140.14.14 | — | — | — | 0 | Blocks ads and trackers by default |
| Mullvad | 194.242.2.2 | — | — | — | 0 | No logging, no filtering |
| Control D | 76.76.2.0 | — | — | — | 0 | Unfiltered free tier |
| NextDNS | 45.90.28.0 | — | — | — | 0 | Configurable filtering |
This compares public resolvers. It cannot time the resolver your Wi-Fi actually hands out, because browsers hide that. The app can: its slow-internet check times your router, your ISP's resolver and the internet separately, so you know which one to blame. Get RECON for iPhone — one-time purchase, no account, nothing leaves the device.
What this measures
Each resolver is asked for ten names over DNS-over-HTTPS: eight real ones, some of which every resolver has cached and some of which it may not, and two random names that force a full lookup out to the authoritative servers. The number reported is the round trip from your browser to the resolver and back, after one warm-up query so that the TLS handshake is not counted. Median is the honest figure; minimum shows the cached case and maximum the uncached one.
What it cannot measure
Your operating system's own resolver, the one your router or ISP assigned by DHCP. Browsers do not let a page issue raw DNS queries, so the only resolvers that can be timed from a web page are ones that speak DNS-over-HTTPS. If you want to know whether your ISP's resolver is the slow link, you need a tool that runs outside the browser: GRC's DNS Benchmark on Windows, dig or namebench on a Mac or Linux box, or a phone app that times the resolver it was given.
Does the fastest resolver make the internet faster
A little, and only at the start of each new connection. A lookup happens once per hostname and is then cached by your device for minutes to hours, so shaving 20 ms off it is invisible on a page you visit often and noticeable on a page that pulls from forty hosts you have never seen. Where resolver choice matters more is reliability, filtering and privacy: whether it blocks malware domains, whether it blocks ads, whether it logs, and whether it is in your country and subject to its rules.
Changing your DNS
On a router, the DNS setting is usually under WAN or Internet settings and applies to every device. On a single device it is under the network adapter's IPv4 and IPv6 settings, or in the Private DNS field on Android and the DNS section of a Wi-Fi network's details on iOS. Set both an IPv4 and an IPv6 address where you can, and prefer a provider that offers DNS-over-HTTPS or DNS-over-TLS so the queries themselves are encrypted on the way there.