Which DNS service you prefer and why?

Hi friends i am thinking about changing from my ISP's dns to some free public dns like opendns or google dns or norton dns or any other mainly due to their claim that they make browsing faster. Is that claim true? i would like to know from people who have actually used those service. I don't need website filtering facility i just need speed in browsing as well as downloading and if they have some malware site blocking facility then i think they will be an added bonus. I am from india more specifically from state assam ( if that really matter) using BSNL broadband with 2Mbps speed.

P.S: Is malware filtering is an important feature? I mean all antiviruses have some form of malware domain blocking facility, atleast avast do this with network shield which i use

Thanks for your replies

With regards
Gautam

if you're interested in simply finding the fastest dns server for your particular connection, have a look at namebench.

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.

...

Ok used this namebench. Which showed google dns is fastest and second fastest is my ISP. So can i use 8.8.4.4 from google as preffered dns and 218.248.255.161 as secondary dns server?

it has to be worth a try for a couple of days.

it's easy enough to change back if you experience any problems.

Norton DNS is the best of both worlds. Fast and secure. To me, I really don't pay attention to the benchmark tests, because like was already mentioned, the time of day can influence those tests, and I can't feel or see any difference in the "fastest" to the "slowest" anyway. So to me, the security of Norton DNS outweighs any speed differences.

OK right now i am using google dns also thinking to use norton dns after that for some time to see how both performs. One last question is there any negative effect which i should be aware of by not using my ISP dns?

Only thing I can think of is I can't see or adjust my router's firewall. I need to have my ISP's DNS to do this, but since it's already set up to my needs, that's not a big deal. If I need to get to my firewall, I just swap back in a few seconds.