One of the reasons why your Internet speed is slower than mine is that you are still using the default DNS setting provided by your ISP (Internet Service Provider). I am using Google Public DNS at the moment and it never let me down. However, while it sounds great I am still going to switch over to 1.1.1.1. Why? Because it’s claimed 28% faster than Cisco OpenDNS and twice as fast as Google Public DNS.
Cloudflare, one of the largest cloud platform provider, announced its own consumer DNS service with the promise to not only speed up your Internet connection but help you keep it private as well. They did so elegantly on a day that fits the name perfectly, April 1, aka April Fools’ Day.
You may ask how a newly established company managed to acquire an IP address like this. APNIC’s research group held the IP addresses 1.1.1.1 and 1.0.0.1. While the address is valid on the Internet, it’s been abused continuously by a flood of garbage traffic. Lots of people have used both addresses as a dummy address. APNIC wants to study this type of traffic but just couldn’t handle the traffic volume that overwhelms their network.
Cloudflare reached out to the APNIC team and expressed their interest to build a privacy-first, extremely fast DNS system. They offer Cloudflare’s network to receive and study the garbage traffic in exchange for being able to offer a DNS resolver on the memorable IP.
There are two IP addresses offered in Cloudflare’s DNS service, 1.1.1.1 and 1.0.0.1. Both are very memorable and are accessible on any browser. Note that depending on where you are you may only be able to access only one of them for the time being.
So, how fast 1.1.1.1 is comparing to other services?
According to DNSPerf, 1.1.1.1 is ranked the fastest DNS service in the world.
To change DNS settings on Windows 10, open Settings app, go to Network & Internet and click Change adapter options.
Right-click on the network adapter (Wired or Wireless) you are connected to, then click Properties.
Double-click the Internet Protocol Version 4 (TCP/IP 4) to open its Properties dialog window. Then click Use the following DNS server addresses and enter 1.1.1.1 as the Preferred DNS server and 1.0.0.1 as the Alternate DNS Server.
Click OK to save all the changes. And you are all set.
Ideally, if you have multiple devices running at home that require Internet access, you should change the DNS settings on DHCP server to automatically assign 1.1.1.1/1.0.0.1 as your DNS server by default.