Grc dns benchmark
Author: o | 2025-04-24
GRC DNS Benchmark: Best for Nameserver Visibility. GRC’s DNS is a popular DNS benchmark tool designed to measure and analyze the performance and reliability of DNS servers. Baked into the GRC’s DNS is the
GRC's DNS Benchmark - Snapcraft
Either paid version will receive notice and free upgrades – and this will apply to all future improvements.Early v2 Pre-Release Sample OutputWork on the major v2 release of GRC's DNS Benchmark is progressing. The snapshot below shows the first ever multi-protocol (IPv4, IPv6, DoH & DoT) hybrid nameserver benchmark. Interestingly, from our location in Southern California, NextDNS's DNS over HTTPS (DoH) came out on top with Quad9's DNS over TLS (DoT) in second place:WHEN will these editions be ready?The short version is, we have NO idea – we cannot even guess. This announcement was made when this became our current project and it's all we're currently working on.We're providing this early notification of the future availability of these free and commercial v2 editions because people visit this page every day, because 1,276 copies of v1 of this DNS Benchmark are downloaded every day, and because:We thought you might want to know what's going on and be notified the moment the v2 releases of the DNS Benchmark are available:Receive news of updates, new freeware and services: (Every email sent contains an instant unsubscribe.) If you subscribe to the GRC News mailing list, we'll let you know the moment pre-release editions are available for download, as well as when the final v2 editions are available. And since we never want anyone to receive email they don't want, every email includes an instant unsubscribe link.Sign up and we'll let you know what's going on!A unique, comprehensive, accurate & free Windows (and Linux/Wine) utility to determine the exact performance of local and remote DNS nameservers . . .“You can't optimize it until you can measure it”Now you CAN measure it!Click here or on the image above to download this 169KByte program.Although GRC's DNS Benchmark is packed with features to satisfy the needs of the Unsigned 32-bit integers. NONE of that is possible with IPv6 128-bit addresses, not to mention the domain-name addressing used by the TLS-based DoH, DoT and DoQ secure DNS protocols.Before I could do anything to “unlock” the Benchmark from its lock on IPv4, I needed to deeply re-engineer the entire thing so that what were 32-bit IPv4 addresses would become 32-bit pointers to generic nameserver data structures. Three days ago I had IPv4 running again under the newly written paradigm, and just minutes ago the first benchmarking of IPv6 nameservers began working.There's still plenty of work left to do, but the fact that this is working is very encouraging and things are looking good! Dec 18, 2024#8 Steve Any idea on a time table? This is not something that I need, but I am just wondering. I think I recall you saying that v1 took many years and I often wonder about how you write code as you have said many time you don't set milestones with dates and you have have a high regard for quality. The truest answer sounds snotty but it's not meant to be: “It will take however long it takes.” In general, our experience with my coding is that it generally takes much longer than I expect at the start, the result does much more than we expected at the start, but once it's finished it's effectively bug free. I guess I must have missed you saying you were doing a v2 for DNS benchmark, I’ve been trying to listen to SN, but I guess as a multitasker I am missing parts. I am a bit confused as to how this affects spinrite v7 development, I like hearing the details on that too. I'm desperate to return to SpinRite and to begin working on v7. But thanks to my squandering 7 years on the public domain SQRL technology, followed by 4 years spent on the free upgrade to SpinRite v6.1, it's been a long time since GRC has introduced any new commercial software. So before I embark on SpinRite 7, I want to see whether the 1300+ people per day who are downloading the free version of the DNS benchmark would be interested in obtaining additional new features for a modest one-time fee. If so, that would create some welcome new revenue for GRC and would allow the Benchmark to support itself.Once that's done, I wantGRC DNS benchmark : r/dns - Reddit
Be sure to checkout “Tips & Tricks”Dear Guest Visitor → Once you register and log-in please checkout the “Tips & Tricks” page for some very handy tips!/Steve. BootAble – FreeDOS boot testing freewareTo obtain direct, low-level access to a system's mass storage drives, SpinRite runs under a GRC-customized version of FreeDOS which has been modified to add compatibility with all file systems. In order to run SpinRite it must first be possible to boot FreeDOS.GRC's “BootAble” freeware allows anyone to easily create BIOS-bootable media in order to workout and confirm the details of getting a machine to boot FreeDOS through a BIOS. Once the means of doing that has been determined, the media created by SpinRite can be booted and run in the same way.The participants here, who have taken the time to share their knowledge and experience, their successes and some frustrations with booting their computers into FreeDOS, have created a valuable knowledgebase which will benefit everyone who follows.You may click on the image to the right to obtain your own copy of BootAble. Then use the knowledge and experience documented here to boot your computer(s) into FreeDOS. And please do not hesitate to ask questions – nowhere else can better answers be found.(You may permanently close this reminder with the 'X' in the upper right.) Beginning work on v2 of the DNS Benchmark Nov 3, 2024#1 Steve Hey Everyone!With the conclusion of the work on GRC's mailing facility and SpinRite's documentation being finalized with the creation of the planned video walkthrough / demo... work on the next project — v2 of the DNS Benchmark — is ready to officially begin. To that end, I've updated GRC's DNS Benchmark page with the planned features of v2. They currently look like this:FeaturesFreePlusProIPv4YesYesYesBenchmark 200 nameserversYesYesYesUpdated 4800+ server listNew!New!New!Updated “top50” websitesNew!New!New!Updated default nameserver listIPv4IPv4/v6IPv4/v6Auto configure fastest DNSNew!New!New!IPv6 Support- - -New!New!Encrypted DoH (DNS over HTTPS)- - -New!New!Encrypted DoT (DNS over TLS)- - -New!New!Encrypted DNSCrypt- - -New!New!User-provided domain testing- - -New!New!DNSSEC (signed domains)- - -New!New!DNS “Spoofability” testing- - -- - -New!Can run as a Windows service- - -- - -New!Long-term performance graphing- - -- - -New!Automatically use fastest servers- - -- - -New!Failing server auto-bypass- - -- - -New!Background monitoring- - -- - -New!Continuous logging- - -- - -New!24-hour performance comparison- - -- - -New!Measure non-A/AAAA records- - -- - -New!Your support for this utilityIn spirit$$ $Price: Free$9.95$19.95The final feature set is still completely. GRC DNS Benchmark: Best for Nameserver Visibility. GRC’s DNS is a popular DNS benchmark tool designed to measure and analyze the performance and reliability of DNS servers. Baked into the GRC’s DNS is theDNS Benchmark - GRC Public Forums
Be sure to checkout “Tips & Tricks”Dear Guest Visitor → Once you register and log-in please checkout the “Tips & Tricks” page for some very handy tips!/Steve. BootAble – FreeDOS boot testing freewareTo obtain direct, low-level access to a system's mass storage drives, SpinRite runs under a GRC-customized version of FreeDOS which has been modified to add compatibility with all file systems. In order to run SpinRite it must first be possible to boot FreeDOS.GRC's “BootAble” freeware allows anyone to easily create BIOS-bootable media in order to workout and confirm the details of getting a machine to boot FreeDOS through a BIOS. Once the means of doing that has been determined, the media created by SpinRite can be booted and run in the same way.The participants here, who have taken the time to share their knowledge and experience, their successes and some frustrations with booting their computers into FreeDOS, have created a valuable knowledgebase which will benefit everyone who follows.You may click on the image to the right to obtain your own copy of BootAble. Then use the knowledge and experience documented here to boot your computer(s) into FreeDOS. And please do not hesitate to ask questions – nowhere else can better answers be found.(You may permanently close this reminder with the 'X' in the upper right.) Home Many DNS servers is enough Mar 2, 2025#1 T talep While Steve is working on DNS benchmark I came across a DNS topic which I think lot's of member here would find interesting.One of my favourite podscasts called PING by APNIC which describe itself as a podcast about measuring the internet had a very interesting episode with the title "How Many DNS nameservers is enough".It starts by asking why we have 13 root name servers ? does a big number of nameserver make sense considering most common clients and recursive resolves behaviour ? Does spreading you nameservers globally , will really result in a client querying the nearest one ? What DNS has to do with anycast ? and eventually what is the optimum criteria to where should you put your DNS nameserver.I hope you will find it interesting as I did Mar 3, 2025#2 A AlanD Does spreading you nameservers globally , will really result in a client querying the nearest one ? Apart from whether a DNS server will query the nearest root server, having a global spread means that, if a major interconnect goes down, "fairly local" services are still available. Mar 4, 2025#3 T talep You are right about having multiple DNS servers spread globally in order to create highly available DNS service world wide will work, however implementing it by having a different address for each server globally appears to be less optimal due to DNS client (and by client I am also talking about recursive resolvers) behaviour.One of the major problems is the inconsistency behaviour between different DNS clients.A good solution to this problem is for example what Google are doing.Ask yourself where is 8.8.8.8 located Cloudflair 1.1.1.1 and then click the little + button to add it and then go back to preset servers and choose cloudflair 1.0.0.1 and choose the little + button to add that.Click apply at the bottom of the screen and you should be set. DOT and DNSSEC are fairly useless on a recursive DNS server, and I've seen a pretty significant performance impact. I would not recommend using either. #5 I made the appropriate settings changes and now that little "note" is not there anymore. Thanks #6 DOT and DNSSEC are fairly useless on a recursive DNS server, and I've seen a pretty significant performance impact. I would not recommend using either. I agree with DoT being...a complexity.unbound handles the DNSSEC stuff iirc, if OP would like to give that a spin. (Querying the AUTH servers directly rather than CloudFlare's recursive ones - unbound makes your router a local, personal DNS server on par with cloudflare, and my router is only a microsecond away from my client machines rather than milliseconds to cloudflare and back) #7 I agree with DoT being...a complexity.unbound handles the DNSSEC stuff iirc, if OP would like to give that a spin. (Querying the AUTH servers directly rather than CloudFlare's recursive ones - unbound makes your router a local, personal DNS server on par with cloudflare, and my router is only a microsecond away from my client machines rather than milliseconds to cloudflare and back) Except the authoritative servers are probably much further away from you than Cloudflare or even your ISP, and each DNS lookup now needs two lookups instead of one. Thinking your little asus router is going to be on par with a nationwide system of high powered anycast server clusters (or even a couple powerful servers from your ISP) is a bit of a misconception.But you do eliminate the man in the middle potential and can validate the DNSSEC signatures yourself in that case, so technically more secure, if you don't mind the performance hit for the first lookup every TTL interval.I use one of my ISP's servers as primary as it is fastest and one of the Level 3 ones as backup as it is nearly as fast. Every so often I check the most common ones with namebench and the GRC DNS Benchmark but the results are typically always about the same.Would be interested to see how your asus querying authoritative servers directly (after querying the Roots for the authoritative NS) performs in one or both of those benchmarks? #8 I'm just going by the chart ("Performance Histogram") - the DNS lookups performed by unbound on my router:there's a massive spike in the 0-1 usec range, which is clearly the cache. The next highest (currently) is centered on the 65-131 msec range, which is what I consider the recursive query timeframe, but the 32-65 msec range eventually supercedes it as the cache builds. (Historically, I have seen it fall into the 8-16 ms range over time)If I add up theInstall GRC's DNS Benchmark on Linux
This, then rather than having all of your DNS queries sent to an ISP's resolvers for resolution, the effects of your DNS queries would be spread out across the Internet as your own DNS resolver directly queried the Internet's DNS servers for the IPs your computer(s) required. While it is possible for individuals to setup their own DNS resolvers — and advanced Internet users do so — doing this is beyond the scope of these pages. We just wanted you to know that the possibility existed.“DNS Spoofing” is a powerful means for trickingunsuspecting users to visit fake (spoofed) web sites:After changing your system's DNS providers, you should use GRC's freeDNS Spoofability system to verify that your new DNS provider hasconfigured their DNS resolvers to thwart DNS spoofing exploits.A quick Google search on the phrase “DNS Spoofing” (perform search with this link) will reveal that the threat is real and very well understood. Despite this fact, it is estimated that upwards of 25% of the Internet's DNS servers are currently (in 2010) vulnerable to DNS spoofing vulnerabilities. GRC created its free DNS Spoofability testing system to allow Internet users to quickly check their own DNS provider's current “spoofability,” as well as to expose those DNS providers who had still not updated their configurations and to (hopefully) put some pressure on them to finally do so.Needless to say, you do not want to mistakenly use any DNS resolvers that might be exploited to return the wrong IP address for a domain you visit — such as your online banking institution — which could cause you to expose your financial logon credentials and other confidential information to unscrupulous and malicious criminals.We are not aware of any other system, besides the one offered by GRC, which provides a sophisticated analysis of the state of DNS resolver “spoofability.” PLEASE be sure to take advantage of its services. It is both fast and free.What DNS Configuration is Best?Now that you have some sense for the several possible DNS configuration arrangements, and for the consequences of changing your current DNS setup, let's examine how to go about making these changes. Assuming you have a router, as users with small networks will, the question to answer is whether you want your DNS configuration to use the centralized router-based approach (if offered by your router) or whether you'd prefer to have your network's computers use public DNS servers directly.Pros & Cons of Router-based DNS:If your computer(s) is/are not behind a router, then router-based DNS is not an option. But assuming that you do have a router, the greatest benefit offered by router-based DNS is that the DNS servers within your entire network can be “centrally managed” and completely changed at a single location (within the router.) This makes experimenting with alternative DNS servers easier, so long as you don't mind having every machine on your network all switching to the new DNS at once.It has been our experience that the best approach, if it is available from the router'sDNS Benchmarking From GRC Reviewed by
Thanks for downloading DNS Benchmark Download of DNS Benchmark will start in 5 seconds... Problems with the download? Please restart the download. DNS Benchmark File Name: DNSBench.exe File Size: 159.03 KB Date Added: May 25, 2022 Why a DNS Benchmark?People use alphabetic domain names (www.grc.com), but Internet data packets require numerical Internet IP addresses (4.79.142.202). So the first step required before anything can be done on the Internet is to lookup the site's or service's domain name to determine its associated Internet IP address.Since nothing can happen until IP addresses are known, the use of slow, overloaded or unreliable DNS servers will get in the way, noticeably slowing down virtually all of your use of the Internet.Unless you have taken over manual control of the DNS servers your system is using (which, as you'll see, is not difficult to do), your system will be using the DNS servers that were automatically assigned by your Internet connection provider (your ISP). Since they are likely located close to you on the Internet (since they are provided by your own ISP) they may already be the fastest DNS servers available to you. But they might be in the wrong order (the second one being faster than the first one, and that matters) or, who knows? Many people have discovered that their own ISP's DNS servers are slower than other publicly available alternatives on the Internet, which are faster and/or more reliable.This DNS Benchmark will give you visibility into what's going on with your. GRC DNS Benchmark: Best for Nameserver Visibility. GRC’s DNS is a popular DNS benchmark tool designed to measure and analyze the performance and reliability of DNS servers. Baked into the GRC’s DNS is theInstall GRC's DNS Benchmark - Snapcraft
Connection provider (your ISP). Since they are likely located close to you on the Internet (since they are provided by your own ISP) they may already be the fastest DNS servers available to you. But they might be in the wrong order (the second one being faster than the first one, and that matters) or, who knows? Many people have discovered that their own ISP's DNS servers are slower than other publicly available alternatives on the Internet, which are faster and/or more reliable.This DNS Benchmark will give you visibility into what's going on with your system's currently assigned DNS servers by automatically comparing their performance with many well known publicly available alternatives.What is GRC's DNS Benchmark?GRC's DNS Benchmark performs a detailed analysis and comparison of the operational performance and reliability of any set of up to 200 DNS nameservers (sometimes also called resolvers) at once. When the Benchmark is started in its default configuration, it identifies all DNS nameservers the user's system is currently configured to use and adds them to its built-in list of publicly available “alternative” nameservers. Each DNS nameserver in the benchmark list is carefully “characterized” to determine its suitability — to you — for your use as a DNS resolver. This characterization includes testing each nameserver for its “redirection” behavior: whether it returns an error for a bad domain request, or redirects a user's web browser to a commercial marketing-oriented page. While such behavior may be acceptable to some users, others may find this objectionable.The point made above about the suitability — to you — of candidate nameservers is a crucial one, since everything is about where you are located relative to the nameservers being tested. You might see someone talking about how fast some specific DNS nameservers are for them, but unless you share theirComments
Either paid version will receive notice and free upgrades – and this will apply to all future improvements.Early v2 Pre-Release Sample OutputWork on the major v2 release of GRC's DNS Benchmark is progressing. The snapshot below shows the first ever multi-protocol (IPv4, IPv6, DoH & DoT) hybrid nameserver benchmark. Interestingly, from our location in Southern California, NextDNS's DNS over HTTPS (DoH) came out on top with Quad9's DNS over TLS (DoT) in second place:WHEN will these editions be ready?The short version is, we have NO idea – we cannot even guess. This announcement was made when this became our current project and it's all we're currently working on.We're providing this early notification of the future availability of these free and commercial v2 editions because people visit this page every day, because 1,276 copies of v1 of this DNS Benchmark are downloaded every day, and because:We thought you might want to know what's going on and be notified the moment the v2 releases of the DNS Benchmark are available:Receive news of updates, new freeware and services: (Every email sent contains an instant unsubscribe.) If you subscribe to the GRC News mailing list, we'll let you know the moment pre-release editions are available for download, as well as when the final v2 editions are available. And since we never want anyone to receive email they don't want, every email includes an instant unsubscribe link.Sign up and we'll let you know what's going on!A unique, comprehensive, accurate & free Windows (and Linux/Wine) utility to determine the exact performance of local and remote DNS nameservers . . .“You can't optimize it until you can measure it”Now you CAN measure it!Click here or on the image above to download this 169KByte program.Although GRC's DNS Benchmark is packed with features to satisfy the needs of the
2025-04-20Unsigned 32-bit integers. NONE of that is possible with IPv6 128-bit addresses, not to mention the domain-name addressing used by the TLS-based DoH, DoT and DoQ secure DNS protocols.Before I could do anything to “unlock” the Benchmark from its lock on IPv4, I needed to deeply re-engineer the entire thing so that what were 32-bit IPv4 addresses would become 32-bit pointers to generic nameserver data structures. Three days ago I had IPv4 running again under the newly written paradigm, and just minutes ago the first benchmarking of IPv6 nameservers began working.There's still plenty of work left to do, but the fact that this is working is very encouraging and things are looking good! Dec 18, 2024#8 Steve Any idea on a time table? This is not something that I need, but I am just wondering. I think I recall you saying that v1 took many years and I often wonder about how you write code as you have said many time you don't set milestones with dates and you have have a high regard for quality. The truest answer sounds snotty but it's not meant to be: “It will take however long it takes.” In general, our experience with my coding is that it generally takes much longer than I expect at the start, the result does much more than we expected at the start, but once it's finished it's effectively bug free. I guess I must have missed you saying you were doing a v2 for DNS benchmark, I’ve been trying to listen to SN, but I guess as a multitasker I am missing parts. I am a bit confused as to how this affects spinrite v7 development, I like hearing the details on that too. I'm desperate to return to SpinRite and to begin working on v7. But thanks to my squandering 7 years on the public domain SQRL technology, followed by 4 years spent on the free upgrade to SpinRite v6.1, it's been a long time since GRC has introduced any new commercial software. So before I embark on SpinRite 7, I want to see whether the 1300+ people per day who are downloading the free version of the DNS benchmark would be interested in obtaining additional new features for a modest one-time fee. If so, that would create some welcome new revenue for GRC and would allow the Benchmark to support itself.Once that's done, I want
2025-03-27Be sure to checkout “Tips & Tricks”Dear Guest Visitor → Once you register and log-in please checkout the “Tips & Tricks” page for some very handy tips!/Steve. BootAble – FreeDOS boot testing freewareTo obtain direct, low-level access to a system's mass storage drives, SpinRite runs under a GRC-customized version of FreeDOS which has been modified to add compatibility with all file systems. In order to run SpinRite it must first be possible to boot FreeDOS.GRC's “BootAble” freeware allows anyone to easily create BIOS-bootable media in order to workout and confirm the details of getting a machine to boot FreeDOS through a BIOS. Once the means of doing that has been determined, the media created by SpinRite can be booted and run in the same way.The participants here, who have taken the time to share their knowledge and experience, their successes and some frustrations with booting their computers into FreeDOS, have created a valuable knowledgebase which will benefit everyone who follows.You may click on the image to the right to obtain your own copy of BootAble. Then use the knowledge and experience documented here to boot your computer(s) into FreeDOS. And please do not hesitate to ask questions – nowhere else can better answers be found.(You may permanently close this reminder with the 'X' in the upper right.) Beginning work on v2 of the DNS Benchmark Nov 3, 2024#1 Steve Hey Everyone!With the conclusion of the work on GRC's mailing facility and SpinRite's documentation being finalized with the creation of the planned video walkthrough / demo... work on the next project — v2 of the DNS Benchmark — is ready to officially begin. To that end, I've updated GRC's DNS Benchmark page with the planned features of v2. They currently look like this:FeaturesFreePlusProIPv4YesYesYesBenchmark 200 nameserversYesYesYesUpdated 4800+ server listNew!New!New!Updated “top50” websitesNew!New!New!Updated default nameserver listIPv4IPv4/v6IPv4/v6Auto configure fastest DNSNew!New!New!IPv6 Support- - -New!New!Encrypted DoH (DNS over HTTPS)- - -New!New!Encrypted DoT (DNS over TLS)- - -New!New!Encrypted DNSCrypt- - -New!New!User-provided domain testing- - -New!New!DNSSEC (signed domains)- - -New!New!DNS “Spoofability” testing- - -- - -New!Can run as a Windows service- - -- - -New!Long-term performance graphing- - -- - -New!Automatically use fastest servers- - -- - -New!Failing server auto-bypass- - -- - -New!Background monitoring- - -- - -New!Continuous logging- - -- - -New!24-hour performance comparison- - -- - -New!Measure non-A/AAAA records- - -- - -New!Your support for this utilityIn spirit$$ $Price: Free$9.95$19.95The final feature set is still completely
2025-03-25