You can speed up your Internet connection and get more privacy with a very simple trick without technical difficulties and on every Linux system. You can also speed up the Internet connection on your smartphone or tablet with the same method, virtually on every device connected to the Internet. This allows you to have a small-medium improvement, which you will notice especially if you have a poor connectivity or if you are on a mobile connection like 3G/4G.
How to tweak your DNS values to get speed and privacy improvements
Domain Name Servers (DNS) are the Internet’s equivalent of a phone book, they maintain a directory of domain names and translate them to Internet Protocol (IP) addresses. Each device connected to the Internet has a unique IP address which other machines use to find the device. DNS servers eliminate the need for humans to memorize IP addresses such as 192.168.1.1 (in IPv4), or more complex newer alphanumeric IP addresses such as 2400:cb00:2048:1::c629:d7a2 (in IPv6).
The DNS servers are nothing more than the translators that allow you to connect to the websites by typing in simple textual addresses (e.g. google.com) instead of the very long numerical addresses (e.g. 174.125.214.72), which would be the real coordinates of Internet sites.
By default, our PCs and routers DNS are crappy and flaw. There are many disadvantages in the default operators DNS, for example, they are not very reactive and make navigation slower, they block certain websites, they do not care about your privacy and many other shitty things. Changing DNS will not only speed up the Internet connection, but also make your data more secure and protected
1.1.1.1, the new DNS of CloudFlare, a well-known company by web developers interested in privacy and speed for websites. 1.1.1.1 is the fastest DNS on the web, and 1.0.0.1 is the alternative one.
Since DNS translates the numerical addresses of websites visited in literal addresses, they automatically know all your history. The processing of these data then depends on company to company, but by law, they can do what they want, even sell them. And that’s where CloudFlare comes into play. The new CloudFlare DNS is committed to respecting the privacy of the users and to delete logs within 24 hours of their creation.
Another advantage of this new DNS is the performance. The implementation of 1.1.1.1 makes it the fastest resolver out there. The power of the Cloudflare network makes gives 1.1.1.1 a natural advantage in terms of delivering speedy DNS queries. Since it has been deployed on Cloudflare’s 1000+ servers worldwide, users anywhere in the world will get a quick response from 1.1.1.1; in addition to this, these servers have access to the over 7 million domains on the Cloudflare platform, making queries for those domains lightning-fast.
How to set up and configure new DNS in Linux
While these steps are perfect for Fedora, Ubuntu and the most part of the Linux distributions that configure DNS settings through the Network Manager, alternatively, you can specify DNS settings in /etc/resolv.conf file.
Open Settings (or Control Panel) and then click Network. Find your Internet connection in the right panel, then click on the gear icon. Click the IPv4 or IPv6 tab to view the actual DNS settings.
Set the “Automatic” DNS switch to Off, then provide the 1.1.1.1 address in the DNS entry field and 1.0.0.1 in the alternative DNS entry field. Optionally, for the IPv6 standard, you can use 2606: 4700: 4700 :: 1111 and 2606: 4700: 4700 :: 1001. In the end, click Apply and restart the system.
Old school, in a terminal session:
$ sudo vi /etc/resolv.conf
And add these at the end of the file:
nameserver 1.1.1.1
nameserver 1.0.0.1
That’s all.
References
Domain Name System – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domain_Name_System
1.1.1.1 is a public DNS resolver that makes DNS queries faster and more secure – CloudFlare – https://www.cloudflare.com/learning/dns/what-is-1.1.1.1/
Change DNS settings on Linux – RackSpace – https://support.rackspace.com/how-to/changing-dns-settings-on-linux/