Increase your internet speed with Namebench

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NameBench is a program that searches for the fastest DNS in your area. After the program is finished searching and comparing between DNS it will give you the results including the fastest and nearest DNS in your area. After that all you have to do is edit your connection settings to use the fastest DNS available. NameBench is available for Windows and Mac systems, but most importantly it is Linux compatible.
Prepare your system

Install following package

sudo apt-get install python-tk

Now you need to download .tgz file from here

Now extract the file using the following command

tar xzvf namebench-1.1.tgz

Now you have namebench-1.1 directory.If you double click on this you have two options if you want to run immediately you can do by double clicking on namebench.py file.

If you want to install permanently using the following command

sudo python setup.py install

Once it opens you should see similar to the following screen here click on Start Benchmark

The results are compared to Google’s DNS and the system will compare against your current DNS settings. The fastest DNS will be listed at the top.

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20 Responses

  1. amine says:

    thanks for the valuable piece of information…but you seem to have left us in the midst of the road.you didn’t tell us how to configure our internet speed after getting the Namebench results!

    many thanks

  2. Mayoral says:

    Tnks 4 the info, doing testing… if something has wrong or good, i’ll post it.

  3. @amine
    Yes he did: “After that all you have to do is edit your connection settings to use the fastest DNS available.”

    By saying “Increase your internet speed with Namebench” he means that THROUGH the use of Namebench, you can pick up a faster DNS and use it, changing your Internet settings to the new and faster DNS = Faster Internet experience.

  4. amine says:

    To kernel_script

    once again I say:

    how,please,can I configure my internet settings on ubuntu?
    we need some explanation or guide to show us how.

  5. Brad says:

    Since this is a site for Ubuntu users, though, it would be nice to include specific instructions on how to change those Internet settings in Ubuntu.

  6. admin says:

    You can change you DNS server settings using the following commands from your terminal

    gksudo gedit /etc/resolv.conf

    Add the fast DNS servers identified by namebench

    nameserver x.x.x.x
    nameserver x.x.x.x

    x.x.x.x – DNS server ip address

    Save and exit the file

  7. @amine
    @Brad

    I never tested it, I don’t know if that works, but: Network Manager (it is Ubuntu default Network Manager [the network icon on the right upper corner of the screen]) > Your Internet Type > IPV4 > DNS Servers

    But what I usualy do is (I find it really really simple and easy):

    gksu nautilus /etc/ppp/resolv.conf

  8. Dan says:

    Or you can just use 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4

  9. Billy everyteen says:

    Speed is just one factor of DNS-for me the fact that OpenDNS allow me to configure to a extent the settings of dns is a major positive for me. Plus OpenDNS has antiphishing and antibotnet built into the free version.

    Now if only the antimalware blocking was incorporated into the free version too…

  10. MAroco says:

    Thanks for that info, didn’t know about namebench. Gave me a quite noticeable speedboost. May be worth doing namebenches on different days though, since the results seem to vary quite a bit. Would also recommend to everbody to have a closer look at the output, especially the min and max times. Namebench seems to define the “fastest” server as the one with the best Avg. The “felt” speed may be faster with a server with a good average and a low Max-value though. In my case UltraDNS had an Average around 80 but max near 2000., so another server with Avg round 100 but max around 900 “felt” faster.
    8.8.8.8. and 8.8.4.4. is Google – they ARE fast but I think they don’t need to know *everything* about me 🙂

  11. Floyd says:

    Yes, you can change the DNS setings by editing the /etc/resolv.conf file but if you are using DHCP those settings will be replaced by DHCP which automatically enters the settings from your router. So you need to go to the setup pages for your router and enter the DNS settings there also. And you can only have a maximum of three DNS servers in resolv.conf. Another reason to use a static IP.

    You can also edit your dhclient.conf file to stop it from requesting DNS from the server.

    See:
    man resolv.conf
    man dhclient.conf

  12. leandro666m says:

    can i use it with a 3G internet connection? from argentine

  13. ATOzTOA says:

    It gave me Google Public DNS 8.8.8.8 🙂

  14. Junaid Munawar says:

    Here you go guys:

    ? Log on as Administrator
    ? Start – run – and type (gpedit.msc)
    ? Expand “Local Computer Policy
    ? Expand “ Administrative Template
    ? Expand “Network Branch”
    ? Highlight “QoS Packet Scheduler
    ? On Right Hand double click “limit reservable bandwidth
    ? On setting tab check “Enable”
    ? Change “Bandwidth limit %” to 0

    You are done. This will increase your computer’s internet speed for about 20%

    Regards,
    Junaid Munawar

  15. rEnr3n says:

    What is the significant difference between running namebench.py and installing it?

  16. John says:

    In order to increase internet speed you have to use an internet accelerator like Internet Cyclone.

  17. zubeen says:

    it increased my speed substantially….however i guess i’ve to use it repeatedly

  18. Tony says:

    Thanks

  19. matt says:

    1
    how does one undo whatever this has done

    sudo python setup.py install

    2
    after executing that command I was shown no gui {ubuntu 10.10}

    3
    running it from the command line is less entertaining

    python namebench.py

    4
    it’d be spiffy if my new shiny pfSense install had this feature baked in — my patience for wrecked sip conversations expired since verizon fios “support” wanted to play the finger pointing game.

    5
    suggestions how to use a different DNS resolver for particular LAN hardware (ata or ip phone)? some voip providers insist their resolvers produce “better” results for sip

    xmpp([email protected]/exo)
    sip([email protected])

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