There are a few posts around the internet aiming to push users to change their DNS for faster internet experience. Although this might be true in very (very) few cases, I believe the closest DNS server to you, are the fastest. That means your local ISP DNS servers. ISPs today serve to millions of DNS requests everyday. The fastest solution for DNS providers like Google would be to provde local DNS servers to your ISP (mainly through Akamai), but this is not always the case, especially if you are located outside US.

Nonetheless there are some cases when you still want to change the DNS server. Personally for me it was the number of advertising pages I was getting once a domain dns could not be resolved. My local ISP was practically making use of those bad requests and instead of a “server not found error”, it was pushing me toward a Google-Ads page which might help beginners, but upset more internet skilled users.

A few years ago I decided to use OpenDNS and just as I was getting satisfactory results, I started noticing that the service still failed to provide a transparent service. If a domain cannot be found, the service was still redirecting me to a search page with search results and advertising.

Then I decided to switch to Google DNS. Google DNS served as fast results as the Open DNS. Although Google claims that this service is better because it has no ads or redirection, recent policies changes in Google and their being the largest advertising company in the world makes people uncomfortable. Knowing that “big-brother” is watching them not only while they search, but also while their just browse the internet provides an uncomfortable feeling.

A few weeks ago I run into the Norton DNS service. Norton DNS is still in beta, but they provide for free a great service which not only resolves domains, but also blocks domains that contain malicious content or unwanted content such as pornographic information. These same services are also offered by the OpenDNS in their premium packages, but Norton offers them for free (at least for now).

Norton offers DNS service depending on the desired protection policy:

A – Security (malware, phishing sites, scam sites and web proxies)
Basic internet protection
198.153.192.40
198.153.194.40
B – Security + Pornography
Protection + filtering of Pornographic content (you know, all those unwanted sites and whatever undesired pictures pop-up to married guys)
198.153.192.50
198.153.194.50
C – Security + Pornography + Non-Family Friendly
Basically paranoid filtering for Grandma
198.153.192.60
198.153.194.60

Google DNS Servers.
8.8.8.8
8.8.4.4

Open DNS Servers:
208.67.222.222
208.67.220.220

I would recommend Norton DNS to anyone for the moment, although it is a beta service. Some restrictions apply as well for those willing to use a Juniper VPN (you will not be able to login to VPN if you use their DNS), but these are all trivial problems.