WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:05.000 If you've ever been interested in boosting your internet speeds without paying extra for it... 00:00:05.000 --> 00:00:08.000 Um, yes, please. 00:00:08.000 --> 00:00:12.000 You may have seen that changing your DNS settings can help. 00:00:12.000 --> 00:00:19.000 But what the heck does DNS mean, and what kind of DNS can actually make your browser noticeably faster? 00:00:19.000 --> 00:00:24.000 DNS stands for Domain Name System, and it's a crucial part of how the web functions. 00:00:24.000 --> 00:00:30.000 The primary job of DNS is to take the host's name of a website, say YouTube.com, 00:00:30.000 --> 00:00:34.000 and translate it into a numerical address called an IP address 00:00:34.000 --> 00:00:39.000 that tells your computer what server it needs to connect to in order to load that web page. 00:00:39.000 --> 00:00:46.000 If you remember paper phone books, it's a little bit like how those would translate the name of a person or business 00:00:46.000 --> 00:00:49.000 into a phone number you could call to reach them. 00:00:49.000 --> 00:00:52.000 Or maybe you weren't born in the 20th century, I don't know. 00:00:52.000 --> 00:00:55.000 When you type in the name of a website, or even just click a link, 00:00:55.000 --> 00:00:59.000 your system sends a DNS query to determine the correct IP address. 00:00:59.000 --> 00:01:06.000 But this process takes time, meaning a slow connection to a DNS server can result in delays before the page loads, 00:01:06.000 --> 00:01:15.000 which we refer to as latency. But here's the thing, these days, most major internet service providers default to DNS servers that are pretty fast. 00:01:15.000 --> 00:01:19.000 Although it's still possible to save time by changing to a faster DNS server 00:01:19.000 --> 00:01:22.000 if you're noticing frequent problems with loading websites, 00:01:22.000 --> 00:01:28.000 it's likely that this won't make much of a perceptible difference if you're only saving 10 or 20 milliseconds. 00:01:28.000 --> 00:01:33.000 So does this mean that advice telling you to adjust your DNS is mostly useless? 00:01:33.000 --> 00:01:38.000 I'm not so fast. Instead of trying to shave off a few milliseconds of latency 00:01:38.000 --> 00:01:43.000 by changing to a commonly recommended public DNS, like Cloudflare or Google, 00:01:43.000 --> 00:01:49.000 what might be more impactful is switching to a filtering DNS service that blocks ads. 00:01:49.000 --> 00:01:55.000 You see, when you load a webpage with ads, you aren't just making one DNS request for the actual website you're visiting. 00:01:55.000 --> 00:01:58.000 Instead, your system has to send lots of DNS requests, 00:01:58.000 --> 00:02:02.000 because the ads on that page often live on completely different domains. 00:02:02.000 --> 00:02:06.000 Not only does this add more latency since you're making additional requests, 00:02:06.000 --> 00:02:10.000 but loading all these ads can seriously slow down your browser's performance. 00:02:10.000 --> 00:02:16.000 Even if they aren't that large in terms of file size, modern ads often involve lots of scripts. 00:02:16.000 --> 00:02:19.000 Basically, extra code your browser has to run, 00:02:19.000 --> 00:02:22.000 which can make your browser feel sluggish or even non-responsive, 00:02:22.000 --> 00:02:26.000 and have even worse consequences if the script contains malware. 00:02:26.000 --> 00:02:32.000 This is a big part of the reason that some webpages on smartphones can be very frustrating to scroll through. 00:02:32.000 --> 00:02:35.000 Not only do all those ads take up a lot of screen real estate, 00:02:35.000 --> 00:02:39.000 but your phone's CPU can have a hard time keeping up with all those scripts. 00:02:39.000 --> 00:02:42.000 And this can be an issue on lower-end PCs as well. 00:02:42.000 --> 00:02:49.000 A filtering DNS service can mitigate this problem by blocking DNS requests to known advertising servers, 00:02:49.000 --> 00:02:54.000 so none of these scripts or other junk from ads makes it to your PC or phone in the first place. 00:02:54.000 --> 00:03:00.000 But wait a sec, we already have ad blocking extensions in apps, so why would I want to use a filtering DNS? 00:03:00.000 --> 00:03:04.000 Well, one advantage you might want to consider is that because all you have to do to use a filtering DNS 00:03:04.000 --> 00:03:08.000 is change a setting in your operating system or on your router, 00:03:08.000 --> 00:03:16.000 there isn't any software overhead. Lightning the load on your CPU, reducing battery consumption, and decreasing the possibility of software bugs. 00:03:16.000 --> 00:03:19.000 And if we're talking specifically about a phone or a laptop, 00:03:19.000 --> 00:03:23.000 assigning a filtering DNS will protect you no matter where you take it, 00:03:23.000 --> 00:03:30.000 instead of having it rely on whichever DNS server your cellular provider or a random public Wi-Fi network uses. 00:03:30.000 --> 00:03:35.000 We're going to link an article in the video description giving you instructions on how to change your DNS server. 00:03:35.000 --> 00:03:40.000 Don't worry, it's not hard. As well as a list of ad blocking DNS services you can try out for yourself. 00:03:40.000 --> 00:03:44.000 One thing to keep in mind though is that unlike ad blocking extensions, 00:03:44.000 --> 00:03:49.000 filtering DNS services can't clean up the webpage for you after blocking those ads. 00:03:49.000 --> 00:03:52.000 So you'll just see a blank space where the ad was supposed to go, 00:03:52.000 --> 00:03:56.000 leaving you wondering what kind of marvelous product you're missing out on hearing about. 00:03:56.000 --> 00:04:00.000 What if it was cool? What if I wanted it? Hey, that was a tech wiki. Thanks for watching. 00:04:00.000 --> 00:04:05.000 If you liked this video, check out our other video on how Chrome is crippling ad blocking extensions. 00:04:05.000 --> 00:04:10.000 Possibly making ad blocking DNS even more appealing. What a great recommendation!