DNS Settings

Hello.

I live in Australia. I was looking for new ways to speed up my internet connection a little bit and I found a website that says they have special DNS servers that help to speed up your internet connection.

I am using windows 7 at the moment on an older computer that I put a SSD drive into. I was told it would help speed it up a bit. And it did.

Someone had setup cloudflare DNS settings on my computer which point to 1.1.1.1
But I was pointed to this website that has a page on it for free public DNS servers which are located in Australia.
The page itself has some intructions on it and a video. But the intructions only seem to be for Windows 10
There is a section in the menu that says Free public DNS servers.
I want to be able to use the Melbourne DNS servers because thats where I am located.


Is anyone able to help me put this websites DNS server settings into my windows 7?
I am unable to find any intructions how to do it.

This tutorial will show you how to change your DNS settings - DNS Addressing - How to Change in Windows 7


Although I would just leave them at cloudflares 1.1.1.1 which also have Austrialian endpoints.

Yeah I did some research. Cloudflare only has an endpoint in Sydney. But I am in Melbourne. And the DNS server I want to use is also in Melbourne. So I would be better for me to use the closest server right?

The closest cloudflare server is actually almost over 1000 kms away from me.
But the Melbourne DNS server listed on this website is less that 20 Km away. So I would be better to use that one right?

If I was in Sydney where the only Australian cloudflare server lives. It would make sense to keep using it as you suggested.
But as I said its almost 1000 kms away. The closest server that this website has is only 20km away as mentioned.

So I would be better off using that one right ?

Distance isn't everything, the response times and freshnes of the DNS matters more.

Try benchmarking the ones you want to use - GRC's | DNS Nameserver Performance Benchmark

upgrade your ISP network will be more faster

In addition to a decent DNS server for faster domain lookups, in an effort to help increase Internet speed would be via the browser and how it deals with webpage content. The two biggest would be A) A reputable Ad Blocker like uBlock Origin and B) how fast the webpage "paints" in the browser.

I don't know much about the internal settings of Chrome (though, I could research it), but in Firefox (and its derivatives) in Firefox's about:config modify the nglayout.initialpaint.delay to 50. Some say 0. Though, I'm not sure if the nglayout.initialpaint.delay code has been stripped out of Firefox or its setting is already set to 0 internally. To get to the nglayout.initialpaint.delay setting, type into the address bar about:config (you'll get a warning) now in the search box provided enter nglayout.initialpaint.delay click the number option and set it at 50. Hit the check mark to apply and restart Firefox.

A value of 0 would seem to me to have a negative affect based on what the nglayout.initialpaint.delay pref does. But again, I don't know if this code is stripped out of Firefox internally where the changed nglayout.initialpaint.delay pref does nothing or if it's already hard coded to a 0.

Back in the day it was a popular setting to mess around with. You'd want to use a value between 50 and 250. Any lower and it could result in the opposite of what you'd want to achieve. This page talks about what the pref does. Nglayout.initialpaint.delay - MozillaZine Knowledge Base

There are other network related prefs that can be tweaked as well, but I'd stick with just this one for now and see how that goes.

The other thing you may want to do is go into the browser settings and increase how much web page caching space you have. But this can create problems latter on so you may need to clear cache and cookies from time to time. I delay you'd dump cache and cookies on browser exit or do what I do and run the browser in Sandboxie for greater malware/virus protection. Sandboxie is now free and open source available at Github, but you'll have to read all about and set it all up correctly. But in your case with page speed, you'll want to keep a cache so that when you visit the same website it'll render quicker.

Pro tip:

If for some reason you want to go back to default settings in about:config or you messed some setting up you have some options.

1) Prior to messing with about:config, backup the prefs.js file. To find it very fast install a great alternative software for Windows searching called Everything.exe and in Everything search for prefs.js. Now right click prefs.js, copy and paste somewhere for safe keeping. Restoring the prefs.js will restore ALL about:config settings, any add-on changed settings and browser settings. Downloads - voidtools

2) Create anew temp Firefox profile and in that newly created profile folder copy the newly created prefs.js into your default profile folder. Profile Manager - Create, remove, or switch Firefox profiles | Firefox Help If you notice when you search for the prefs.js, it resides in your default Firefox profile folder under AppData. The profile folder name will be some string of random characters like, p99Tyy3d. Each new Firefox profile will have its own profile folder in the AppData folder with a unique folder name like that.

3) Download Firefox portable and rip that newly created prefs.js file out of it after you first start portable Firefox. The only caveat here is that you want to make sure both your installed version of Firefox and the portable version are the same versions. The other thing here is that add-on settings that were in the old prefs.js file for the installed version of Firefox will go bye, bye with a new prefs.js swap out.


I'd take this time and make sure the DNS cache service is in fact on and set to automatic. To find out, go to the start orb and in search enter services.msc Now in the list of services find DNS Client service. Make sure it's on and set to automatic. It probably already is. Just want to make sure.

If for some reason webpages or what ever don't load, one remedy is to flush the DNS cache and see if that fixes the issue. To do that go to search and enter cmd. Right click command prompt and run as administrator. Now in command prompt enter the following: ipconfig /flushdns


If the DNS Client service is on you should see successfully flushed the DNS cache. Don't flush the DNS cache unless you absolutely have to. The DNS cache is what is looked at first before making an external Internet DNS request for domain to IP address resolution with your chosen DNS server/s.


Going waaaaaay beyond all this, you might want to look into something called network teaming or network load balancing. This involves using two modems tied together to increase the available bandwidth. It may help with Internet speed. But of course having this option from your ISP (if available) may be a bit pricey. By in large, finding a tier 1 ISP would be the better choice. Here in the U.S. a tier 1 ISP would be Comcast and I think Verizon FIOS which offers fiber right to the house would be another. FIOS is super fast with very low latency. FIOS is only available in select markets. I'm sure rolling that out to other places would cost a lot so that may not be beneficial to their (Verizon's) bottom line. With 5G rolling out there will probably be 5G antenna on near by street lights and what have you and that'll be another source of high speed Internet. 5G will change the landscape like you wouldn't believe and if your an investor I'd personally be apt to invest in technologies surrounding it. But that's just my opinion.

Anyway, done gone wrote a book! LOL!