Which dns server?

[DarkEnergy]

This relates to a recent Linus video. Using the GRC dns benchmark and running it for the full ~35 minutes shows that my current 192.168.1.1 is the fastest dns server by a long shot. But that's my router's IP. I doubt the router is also a dns server and I'll just assume the router is connected to another dns server but that I do not know. According to the benchmark results, does this still mean my current "dns" server is the fastest or is it unknown what my dns server's speed really is?

 

[Oshino Shinobu]

Your router will be caching some addresses, so it will be fast in some situations. 

 

Google's public DNS is reliably fast, so it's a good bet. You can try 1.1.1.1 and 1.0.0.1 which is Cloudflare's public DNS. 

[STRESSMASTER]

6 minutes ago, Oshino Shinobu said:

Your router will be caching some addresses, so it will be fast in some situations. 

 

Google's public DNS is reliably fast, so it's a good bet. You can try 1.1.1.1 and 1.0.0.1 which is Cloudflare's public DNS. 

as Oshino Shinobu from monogatari said. the router is first dns by default and does cache stuff. however new request go to the router than are sent to 8.8.4.4 before you actually get anything. that is your first real internet accessed DNS. I tried this with the 1.1.1.1 from cloudflare and I did see quite a boost in lag reduction so I suggest you give it a try and see what your results will be.

[DarkEnergy]

5 minutes ago, STRESSMASTER said:

as Oshino Shinobu from monogatari said. the router is first dns by default and does cache stuff. however new request go to the router than are sent to 8.8.4.4 before you actually get anything. that is your first real internet accessed DNS. I tried this with the 1.1.1.1 from cloudflare and I did see quite a boost in lag reduction so I suggest you give it a try and see what your results will be.

Will do.

[AnonymousGuy]

You need your Router to act as a DNS server in order to resolve local network device names.  Otherwise you won't be able to remote desktop to "MY_DESKTOP" because it won't have any way of resolving the LAN IP for that machine, for example.

 

Your router doesn't know the IP addresses of anything but machines connected to it.  When you look up "google.com" it will go off to its DNS provider (ISP or your overwritten DNS host) to figure out the IP address that goes to the domain.

 

Bonus details: it took me a long time to realize that in order for PiHole (my DNS server) to be able to log DNS requests by computer name instead of IP I had to add my router IP address as the primary DNS and 1.1.1.1 as the secondary address.   This is called reverse DNS where you know the IP but not the machine name.