OpenDNS solved my problems
For the past few weeks, I’ve been noticing network delays when trying to hit most websites. I’d get part of the page to load (I’m thinking from my cache), but the rest of the page would take several seconds to complete. I started thinking maybe my DNS (domain name system) thru Comcast was the problem. For those who don’t know what service the DNS provides, think of it like a phone book. When you type in “google.com”, that string gets passed thru these DNS servers and it’s translated into an IP address, like 255.193.32.35, which is how computer networks see things.
You can sign up for free at OpenDNS.com, and by doing so, you can tweak things like disabling phishing sites and adult sites. Before these changes can be applied to your network, however, you’ll have to set up your router to point traffic to the OpenDNS servers instead of whatever you’re currently using. To do this, login to your router, usually something like 192.168.1.1 and provide your userID and password. Look for the DNS settings and change the primary to 208.67.222.222 and the secondary to 208.67.220.220 (these number can be found on the opendns.com page under their logo).
After doing this, I’ve notice that latency is completely gone and now pages load very fast. Gmail acts just like Outlook now and seems to load my emails as if they were stored locally. I should have done this months ago!
Enjoy (and let me know if you have any quetions)
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SteveO