Quote:
Originally Posted by Paul M
Again, DNS has no effect on your download speeds.
Yes, it provides the IP address for the source, and yes, a few CDNs have multiple sources, but DNS plays no part in the actual download, it simply helps connect you.
I have no figures, but I doubt most internet sites are using multi-source CDN's.
|
I don't think we're disagreeing here, just arguing semantics. From a very simple perspective, a change in DNS can
cause slower download speeds but it's not DNS itself that's causing them, just the hosts that are being resolved.
The issue isn't if sites are (or aren't) using a CDN, it's more that if they
are using a CDN then you can end up using an endpoint that's not geographically close to you. It's been written about plenty:
http://www.apcmag.com/why-using-goog...-bad-idea.htm/
https://www.sajalkayan.com/in-a-cdnd...the-enemy.html
https://00f.net/2012/02/22/akamai-vs...c-dns-servers/
The very issue is that, historically, these DNS providers end up selecting US endpoints for a lot of people, despite us being in the UK. Now I appreciate the above links are pretty old and I
believe they've been largely resolved by Google et al having much better (read: more distributed) infrastructure for their DNS systems, but it's still a very real problem that can raise its head and it's not worth dismissing outright.
Having done some research, here's an interesting read:
https://community.cloudflare.com/t/c...olving/16275/2
Basically, Google has (largely) fixed the above issue by passing along the client's IP as part of the lookup, meaning it should in most cases resolve to the closest endpoint - however,
Cloudflare does not for privacy reasons.
Cloudflare does have a lot of endpoints distributed around so theoretically it should get you to an endpoint within your home country, but that doesn't mean it's the one closest to you specifically. So there will be a (hopefully small) impact from using 1.1.1.1 over 8.8.8.8, which will have its own impact over your ISP's own DNS.
All that being said, I use Cloudflare's and I'm very happy with it and I use Google's as a secondary. I wouldn't touch any ISP's with a barge pole.
Quote:
Originally Posted by roughbeast
My bad. I didn't spot that. Main reason: Why would anyone want to test their connection speed or quality using US-based sites, with servers in Dallas or wherever? There are some US sites with London-based servers, but generally not. e.g. testmy net
|
Without knowing which sites OP is using, it's impossible to say. My guess is that they've managed to find a site that's US-based but is using some kind of CDN and as a result they're
actually downloading from a US endpoint instead of a UK endpoint, depending on which