Faster DNS connection

just wanted to share this: by downloading Namebench at http://code.google.com/p/namebench/ you can check which DNS server is the fastest to use on your computer (by speed and location).

It only saves maybe nanoseconds or milliseconds, but the faster the connection, the less delay you have on your trading platform.

No.

DNS has nothing to do with the delay of already established connections.

And if you want a reliable and fast DNS server then you can always just install one yourself.

install it yourself?
what do u mean?
Thanks!

Simply install one yourself. If your provider's nameserver is unreliable, slow or you suspect dns manipilation/censorship then you can install your own copy of bind (or whatever other software is appropriate for windows) and run it as caching DNS-proxy. The OP wanted the fatest possible DNS resolution, so it would be the only logical consequence to have the dns server sitting directly on your own machine instead of using one somewhere else.

But this all is completely irrelevant to trading, it won't influence the connection to your broker and the execution of your trades because this has absolutely nothing to do with DNS.

i see.
is there any disadvantage in installing a DNS?

since we're at it,[i might learn a new thing or two]
what do YOU consider are the best ways (related to internet & PC hardware/software) to create a smooth/better trading experience (trade execution etc)?
Thanks Sir!

It might be a bit complicated to set up, at least if you are on windows where most things are ten times more complicated to do than on unix/linux.


Simple answer: avoid everything that might negatively impact your trading.

Have a reliable broker, have a reliable and fast (no satellite link!) internet connection, don't use the oldest and slowest PC hardware and make sure there are not 1000 unnecessary little programs running in the background. Maybe even use a separate PC for trading only or use a VPS near your broker (or even located directly in your broker's data center).

Alternative: trade longer timeframes, H4 and upwards, so delays become a non-issue.

Most ISP DNS servers are overloaded. Something a lot of broadband or DSL users know little of. In fact, when you're internet goes down it's usually because their DNS server is overloaded or down. I found this out when I went from cable internet (fast) to DSL (slow).

I decided to change my DNS setting so I chose free OpenDNS option but I found out they censor their connections. Upon finding that out I switched to Google's DNS. Google's DNS is faster and the connection is stable. I've been using Google for about a year now and only had one outage. When that happened I switched back to OpenDNS. Once Google was back up, I resumed using their services.

My company office uses our own private proprietary DNS server I setup using one of our extra VPS servers we're not using. In the office we use business broadband internet and decided not to use their business class DNS. When trading is involved, we can't afford outages of any kind.

Thanks for sharing, Josef!