Maximum PC

ý Only the built-in default resolvers were benchmarked.
Please consider taking the time to create a custom resolver list.
This is a reminder about the tremendous benefits to be gained from benchmarking the "Top 50" resolvers that are found for you by the Benchmark's custom resolver list builder. When you have time, don't forget to give that a try. The results will astound you! You can find the option to do this on either the application's System Menu (Alt-Spacebar) or on the Add/Remove nameservers dialog on the Nameservers page.


ý System has only ONE (router based) nameserver configured.
It appears that only one local (router gateway) DNS nameserver, with the IP address of [#########], is currently providing all DNS name resolution services to this system. This configuration is not recommended because most consumer-grade routers provide inefficient and under-powered DNS resolution services.

Unless the DNS resolvers your router is using is under your control, it may not be providing the best or complete name resolution services. For example, is it using multiple redundant DNS nameservers?

Users of GRC's DNS Spoofability system have determined that consumer-grade routers can be crashed by the receipt of specific DNS reply packets from the Internet. This opens the possibility that Internet-based criminals could acquire access to your router from the Internet as well as to the private network in controls.

Many consumer-grade routers fail to provide the full range of DNS lookup services. This may have been detected by the benchmark and noted below.

Recommended Actions:

Unless you have some specific reason not to, you should give serious thought to disabling your router's provisioning of DNS services (which it is providing for all computers on your local network). After this is done, a fresh reboot of your computers will likely reveal the multiple DNS nameservers provided by your ISP. This is a superior configuration, without an under-powered router acting as a incompetent middleman and impeding all DNS access.

Note that if you can determine the IP addresses of your ISP-provided nameservers (which may be visible in your router's web configuration) you could manually add them to the nameservers being tested by this benchmark, while also leaving your router providing DNS. This would allow you to compare the performance when running through your router versus "going direct".


þ System's sole nameserver is alive and replying to queries.
Although this system has only one DNS resolving nameserver, at least it is alive and replying to DNS queries. (If it were not, you would likely be painfully aware, since it would be difficult to accomplish anything requiring Internet access.)


þ System nameserver is faster than ALL public alternatives.
The DNS resolver your system is using is responding faster than any of the 100% reliable publicly available alternative DNS nameservers this benchmark utility just tested. Therefore, there would be no performance benefit from switching to any of those publicly available nameservers. However, since you only have a single system nameserver configured, it might be useful to use some of the fastest public nameservers as backups if that's possible in your situation. Please also note that this best performance appraisal assumes that this system's nameserver is 100% reliable. See the next item below for an appraisal of your nameserver's reliability.

Note: If there appeared to be one or more faster public alternative nameservers, there was enough uncertainty created by the spread of benchmark timing results that it was not possible to be at least 95% confident that any of those faster seeming nameservers really were reliably faster than the nameserver this system is currently using. So it made no sense to alarm you about the need to change things when there was insufficient evidence.


þ This system's nameserver is 100% reliable.
DNS reliability is extremely important, since lookup requests that are dropped and ignored by nameservers cause significant delays in Internet access while the querying system waits for a reply. The system is then finally forced to reissue the query to the same or to backup nameservers. While your system is patiently waiting for a reply, you are impatiently waiting to get on with your Internet access.

During this benchmark test, the system's nameserver tested returned a reply for every request sent. It doesn't get any better than that. Very nice.