DNS on Macbook Pro

These are ordered in my Network settings. It is "cascading"(?) if one does not respond it drops down the list.

It makes no difference to me to be honest.

Use whatever works for your region best

I do not use a VPN like your 1.1.1.1 Cloudflare https://1.1.1.1/

generally I do not advise the use of VPN:

A true VPN tunnel, for example between you and your job, or a Bank server would be of value, otherwise might be time to re-think the usage. 

see: Public VPN's are anything but private

https://gist.github.com/joepie91/5a9909939e6ce7d09e29

Zacenator wrote:

Ah! I didn't know that, my phone has a default DNS for my home. I might use that as my default and copy yours for the 'drop down' idea. May I ask your rough region to see if our DNS' are close enough to work?

it ok to experiment, some times those "default services" DNS are not the fastest—but they like your business.

Cupertino time

Can you describe the issues or concerns you have here in a little more detail?

There isn't a single best DNS server. And if you're stuck waiting on DNS enough for this to matter, there's either something you're doing that's unusual (DNS access patterns, etc), or there's something else going on.

Referencing a missing or failed DNS server can delay things substantially (upwards of 30 seconds per query, depending on the details and settings), but a working DNS server should get responses back—and particularly server-cached responses—very quickly, for those responses that are not already cached locally. Usually paralleling your network connection and its latency, of course.

ISP DNS servers are usually pretty good for most requirements, and have locality, though–like most everything else in IT—there can be some ISPs with unstable or flaky servers in the mix, or a forwarder somewhere might be slow, or maybe there's a "nanny" filter or VPN or other intercept or proxy in the mix.

There's also that Private Relay (part of iCloud+) uses DoT or DoH for some traffic, which can effect performance.

So... have you looked at why your DNS is slow, and what your current performance might be?

The command line dig command can show performance, though that's not tied into the macOS DNS resolver.

Locally, I'm seeing ~110 ms for the first translation, and ~40 for subsequent translations of the same host. (That's with a comparatively unusual DNS configuration.) If I query Google directly, ~140 ms, then ~90 ms.

Zacenator wrote:

I was told that some DNS servers allow quicker search results and overall performance when it comes to network. Is this right?

Some DNS servers are faster than others, yes. Most DNS servers also cache recent translations. Clients also cache translations, which means the client won't be hitting the DNS server nearly as often, for repeat translations. Whether that matters in any particular case varies. DNS is one of various factors in a connection.

That is why I'm trying to find quicker servers, to improve responsiveness on my device.

Until there are some baseline measurements for performance, making changes tends to be premature.

I was also told that they vary between timezones, so am trying to find the quickest ones for my area.

DNS server with a low latency link will be faster than a nearby DNS server with a higher-latency link, and no remote DNS server will outperform a local DNS cache.

ISP DNS servers on wireline networks tend to be pretty speedy, within the latency of the wireline link.

Janky DNS servers on satellite links tend toward slower.

Though a satellite DNS server will not be involved with the second and subsequent translations, as those should be served from local DNS caches.

A popular and busy DNS server can push your translations out of its cache earlier, too, which means a faster server can be slower on average, once the translation falls out of your local cache. A lower-loaded DNS server might not, which means that server doesn't need to walk the whole DNS chain again, and can serve the response out of its cache. But that assumes the translation falls out of your local DNS cache, too. Which depends on access patterns and available loading and available memory.

I don't know if my DNS is particularly slow, but if it can be quicker, why not!

If you don't know if the current translations are slow, you won't know if making changes improves things, or reduces performance.

Reliable and quick translations are good, but—if DNS translations are slow—you'll want to address other potential causes of that. It's fairly unusual for an app to be hitting a DNS server hard. The local DNS cache, sure. The server, not so much. That's not how this stuff works.

If I am incorrect about anything, I'd love to hear your feedback :)

Like most things in IT, there are trade-offs.

Zacenator wrote:

Hi all,

What is the best free DNS to use, which actually might improve speed performance on a MacBook Pro?

Thanks :)

two of the most common:

google

and

opendns