Want to Know How to Double Your Internet Speed for Free?

Change your DNS servers for faster internet access

While there are several tweaks and steps you can take to test and improve your
internet connection speeds, one of the easiest and quickest ways to speed up your
web browsing is modifying the Domain Name System servers.

DNS and Your Internet Speed

The DNS is like the internet's phonebook, mapping website names like lifewire.com
to a specific computer (or computers) where the site is hosted. When you try to
access a website, your computer has to look up the addresses, and your choice of
DNS server can affect how fast a website loads.

The network settings for your computer, router, or access point allow you to
specify which DNS servers � primary and secondary � to use. By default, these are
likely set by your internet service provider, but there may be faster ones to use.

Find the Best DNS Server

Several utilities can help you find the best DNS server by running benchmarks that
test how they respond specifically to your location. GRC's DNS Benchmark is a great
tool for Windows and Linux users, and namebench is a quick and easy tool that runs
on Mac, too.

Another way to find a fast DNS server is to try one from our Free and Public DNS
Servers list. Many offer extra privacy protections, other various levels of
filtering, etc.

Here's how to use the free open-source namebench utility (it should work similarly
in GRC's DNS Benchmark):

Download and install the namebench utility.

When you first start it up, you'll be asked to enter your current nameserver. If it
isn't entered for you automatically, you'll have to find it yourself:

If you've never changed the DNS servers your computer uses, then the address should
be the same as your default gateway. So, if you know your default gateway, you can
skip this step altogether.

In Windows, open Command Prompt and enter ipconfig /all. Look for the "DNS Servers"
line; next to it is the DNS server address.

ipconfig /all command in Windows 10 Command Prompt

On a Mac, open a Terminal window by going to Applications > Utilities > Terminal,
and then enter cat /etc/resolv.conf.

macOS Terminal window showing the result of cat /etc/resolv.conf command, domain
and nameserver
In namebench, type your current nameserver address as you found it displayed above,
and then select Start Benchmark.

Wait for a new browser page to open with your benchmarking results. It might take
several minutes or longer.

You'll see the recommended primary, secondary, and tertiary DNS servers that can
help you get a faster internet connection speed than what you're getting with the
current DNS servers.

You'll see a list of tested DNS servers and how long they took to load web pages.
Write down the numbers for your recommended servers.

You can now exit namebench and close the page that opened in your browser.

Change the DNS Servers

Now you can change your DNS server on either your computer(s) or your router.

How to Change DNS Server Settings

If you use several devices or if many friends and family connect to your network,
you should log in to your router as an administrator to make the change there. That
way, every device that gets its addresses automatically from the router will be
updated with these DNS servers for faster web browsing.

Or, you can modify the DNS servers on each computer or device. Go to the network
adapter settings for your computer, or the Wi-Fi settings on your phone or tablet,
and enter the DNS server addresses. Doing this changes the DNS server for that one
device only.

Results
Our test results showed a 132.1 percent improvement from using Google's DNS servers
over using the stock DNS servers, but in real-world usage, it might not be exactly
that much faster. Still, this one tweak might get you finally feeling like you have
a blazing connection to the internet.

Changing your DNS servers can speed up the amount of time it takes to resolve a
domain name, but it's not going to speed up your overall internet connection. For
example, you will not see an improvement in your average download speeds for
streaming content or downloading large files.

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