DIR Return Create A Forum - Home
---------------------------------------------------------
Albox Computer Club
HTML https://acc.createaforum.com
---------------------------------------------------------
*****************************************************
DIR Return to: General Discussion
*****************************************************
#Post#: 41--------------------------------------------------
Simplified Explanation of DNS and how to change it
By: GeoffB Date: February 20, 2012, 10:28 am
---------------------------------------------------------
A subject that has been talked about at the club on a few
occasions is that of changing your default DNS**.
A Domain Name Service translates queries for domain names**
(which are meaningful to humans) into IP addresses** (which are
meaningful to computers) for the purpose of locating computer
services and devices worldwide. When you type an internet
address into your browser, say www.google.com the DNS looks this
up and retrieves the IP address of 74.125.230.177. it’s a bit
like you asking directory enquiry’s for the telephone No of Mr J
Smith , the difference being that you don’t have to specify the
house No, Street, Town & County as in the world of the internet
there will only ever be ONE Mr J Smith or in this example
www.google.com. There will probably be a www.gogle.com or a
www. goggle.com and even a www.gaggle.com but these will have
different IP Addresses in the same way that Mr J Smith and Mr J
Smyth will live at different houses and have different phone
Nos.
When you sign up with an ISP** and your internet is up and
running they (your ISP) will have their own, or will have
allocated to you the services of a third party DNS. For various
reasons these are not always the fastest ones available, this is
where we get into the area of changing your DNS.
I have posted with this message the instructions to change your
DNS for each of the 3 windows operating systems, Linux will take
me a bit longer as I have no means of testing the instructions
at this present time. The instructions revolve around using
OPENDNS, but you are free to use any other DNS services that you
choose, it will just be the IP addresses (ie the numbers) that
will change.
There is a small utility available that will automatically test
your computer and ISP to find the fastest suitable DNS for you,
click this link
HTML http://code.google.com/p/namebench/
and
download the file on the left of the screen marked as
namebench-1.3.1-Windows.exe run the program and follow the
instructions.
Here are a few public DNS that are readily available,
Google public dns server IP address: 8.8.8.8 & 8.8.4.4
Dnsadvantage free dns server list: 156.154.70.1 & 156.154.71.1
OpenDNS free dns server list / IP address: 208.67.222.222 &
208.67.220.220
Norton free dns server list / IP address: 198.153.192.1 &
198.153.194.1
Public dns server address: 67.138.54.100 & 207.225.209.66
**
DNS = Domain Name System
Domain Names = WWW.Yahoo.com or WWW.BBC.co.uk etc
IP Addresses = 215.226.145.67 or 228.67.220.220 or similar
ISP = Internet Service Provider BT or Vodafone for example
Due to attachment space allocation size on the forum it has been
necessary to remove this attachment, should you still require a
copy please contact me and i can email you a copy.
*****************************************************