4 ms·

We got MSMed. The post about baseball bat sales in the UK was the perfect media bait and they all linked to the item page. Hmm. The past 48 hours a lot of site

by jerrya 15y ago

We got MSMed. The post about baseball bat sales in the UK was the perfect media bait and they all linked to the item page. Hmm. The past 48 hours a lot of sites have been slow for me: HN, Salon, FARK, ... I figured I was getting Cox'd. http://cox.com http://cox.com

Vexenon 15y ago
I was wondering why the load times have been ridiculously long. Also: I've been getting Cox'd as well the past three or so days. Maybe I should complain, or something.
- jerrya 15y ago
  fyi, cox has their own local speed tests which can be informative as to where the hangup might be. The local one to me is: http://azspeedtest.cox.com/ http://azspeedtest.cox.com/ It's actually somewhat frustrating to see that register phenomenal speeds when the web past their internal routers seems ... buffering ... buffering.
kleeg 15y ago
I figured I was getting Cox'd That's what she said... I noticed the same with Fark as well. Also HuffPo.
loire280 15y ago
Cable providers provide terrible DNS service. You may notice a big difference in performance by changing your DNS settings to http://code.google.com/speed/public-dns/ http://code.google.com/speed/public-dns/ or http://www.opendns.com/ http://www.opendns.com/. As a bonus, I've noticed that many service interruptions are DNS failures, not routing issues.
- blinkingled 15y ago
  Absolutely - change the DNS _and_ put something like DD-WRT on your router with dnsmasq as the local caching proxy server. Nothing beats that per Steve Gibson's DNS benchmark!
  - Terretta 15y ago
    Was this an inside joke?[1] 1. http://allthatiswrong.wordpress.com/2009/10/11/steve-gibson-is-a-fraud/ http://allthatiswrong.wordpress.com/2009/10/11/steve-gibson-... 2. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2510614 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2510614
    - blinkingled 15y ago
      It wasn't - this is just a DNS benchmark that does DNS resolution in loop and measures how long it took etc. Nothing requiring security expertise. Besides I don't understand why few people are after Gibson - he is generally on the mark - that's not to say he doesn't make mistakes - but nothing that makes me want to totally ignore him.
- jerrya 15y ago
  Thanks, but I actually do that using both Google's (8.8.8.8), as well as Level 3's (4.2.2.1)
- dvdhsu 15y ago
  You might want to try NameBench, which will find the fastest DNS server for you. http://code.google.com/p/namebench/ http://code.google.com/p/namebench/
- ghshephard 15y ago
  Be Careful about changing your DNS settings if you use a CDN - iTunes, in particular, offers horrible performance if you use googles DNS.
  - ComputerGuru 15y ago
    Why do you think iTunes would care what DNS server you are using? I'm genuinely curious, as I would think that the DNS lookups are abstracted by the OS, and even if they were not, I cannot see how using a different (esp. a better performing) DNS server would hinder iTunes performance — especially since the original DNS isn't provided by Apple or anything.
    - ryannielsen 15y ago
      CDNs often rely on your DNS info to determine which node is closest to you and, thus, which node should offer the best performance. Using a central DNS like Google's can do two things: 1) Break locality. Using 8.8.8.8 may cause CDNs to potentially direct you to a node that's nowhere near your actual physical location 2) Aggregate traffic on a node. The more people using 8.8.8.8 for DNS, the more people who may land on the CDN nodes associated with 8.8.8.8's location and thus that node may be more loaded than the one closer to you [edit] Google even covers this in their Public DNS FAQ: http://code.google.com/speed/public-dns/faq.html#cdn http://code.google.com/speed/public-dns/faq.html#cdn. They offer 31 different locations, while Akamai may offer thousands of nodes (I can't find hard numbers, but they refer to 1,200+ points of presence here http://www.akamai.com/hdonline http://www.akamai.com/hdonline and 1,000 networks here http://www.akamai.com/html/technology/edgeplatform.html http://www.akamai.com/html/technology/edgeplatform.html). You're basically constraining yourself to a small subset of at least Akamai's CDN by using Google Public DNS.
      - ComputerGuru 15y ago
        That completely slipped my mind. You are, of course, correct. An alternative suggestion here is to use Comcast's 75.75.75.75 IP address; while it may seem static, it's actually an anycast address, and will resolve to the nearest node. One thing many people forget when choosing a DNS server is that it's not just the ping time that counts - the time it takes the server to reply to the actual DNS request is what matters. e.g. while 75.75.75.75 for me (Comcast Chicago) is a 15ms trip and 8.8.8.8 is a 28ms ping, the lookup on the former (dig x.com @dns_ip) can reach 120ms while on Google's DNS it never exceeds ~35ms.
known 15y ago
Debug the connection with http://netalyzr.icsi.berkeley.edu/ http://netalyzr.icsi.berkeley.edu/
- jerrya 15y ago
  Thank you.

by jerrya 15y ago

Vexenon 15y ago

I was wondering why the load times have been ridiculously long. Also: I've been getting Cox'd as well the past three or so days. Maybe I should complain, or something.

jerrya 15y ago
fyi, cox has their own local speed tests which can be informative as to where the hangup might be. The local one to me is: http://azspeedtest.cox.com/ http://azspeedtest.cox.com/ It's actually somewhat frustrating to see that register phenomenal speeds when the web past their internal routers seems ... buffering ... buffering.

kleeg 15y ago

I figured I was getting Cox'd That's what she said... I noticed the same with Fark as well. Also HuffPo.

loire280 15y ago

Cable providers provide terrible DNS service. You may notice a big difference in performance by changing your DNS settings to http://code.google.com/speed/public-dns/ http://code.google.com/speed/public-dns/ or http://www.opendns.com/ http://www.opendns.com/. As a bonus, I've noticed that many service interruptions are DNS failures, not routing issues.

blinkingled 15y ago
Absolutely - change the DNS _and_ put something like DD-WRT on your router with dnsmasq as the local caching proxy server. Nothing beats that per Steve Gibson's DNS benchmark!
- Terretta 15y ago
  Was this an inside joke?[1] 1. http://allthatiswrong.wordpress.com/2009/10/11/steve-gibson-is-a-fraud/ http://allthatiswrong.wordpress.com/2009/10/11/steve-gibson-... 2. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2510614 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2510614
  - blinkingled 15y ago
    It wasn't - this is just a DNS benchmark that does DNS resolution in loop and measures how long it took etc. Nothing requiring security expertise. Besides I don't understand why few people are after Gibson - he is generally on the mark - that's not to say he doesn't make mistakes - but nothing that makes me want to totally ignore him.
jerrya 15y ago
Thanks, but I actually do that using both Google's (8.8.8.8), as well as Level 3's (4.2.2.1)
dvdhsu 15y ago
You might want to try NameBench, which will find the fastest DNS server for you. http://code.google.com/p/namebench/ http://code.google.com/p/namebench/
ghshephard 15y ago
Be Careful about changing your DNS settings if you use a CDN - iTunes, in particular, offers horrible performance if you use googles DNS.
- ComputerGuru 15y ago
  Why do you think iTunes would care what DNS server you are using? I'm genuinely curious, as I would think that the DNS lookups are abstracted by the OS, and even if they were not, I cannot see how using a different (esp. a better performing) DNS server would hinder iTunes performance — especially since the original DNS isn't provided by Apple or anything.
  - ryannielsen 15y ago
    CDNs often rely on your DNS info to determine which node is closest to you and, thus, which node should offer the best performance. Using a central DNS like Google's can do two things: 1) Break locality. Using 8.8.8.8 may cause CDNs to potentially direct you to a node that's nowhere near your actual physical location 2) Aggregate traffic on a node. The more people using 8.8.8.8 for DNS, the more people who may land on the CDN nodes associated with 8.8.8.8's location and thus that node may be more loaded than the one closer to you [edit] Google even covers this in their Public DNS FAQ: http://code.google.com/speed/public-dns/faq.html#cdn http://code.google.com/speed/public-dns/faq.html#cdn. They offer 31 different locations, while Akamai may offer thousands of nodes (I can't find hard numbers, but they refer to 1,200+ points of presence here http://www.akamai.com/hdonline http://www.akamai.com/hdonline and 1,000 networks here http://www.akamai.com/html/technology/edgeplatform.html http://www.akamai.com/html/technology/edgeplatform.html). You're basically constraining yourself to a small subset of at least Akamai's CDN by using Google Public DNS.
    - ComputerGuru 15y ago
      That completely slipped my mind. You are, of course, correct. An alternative suggestion here is to use Comcast's 75.75.75.75 IP address; while it may seem static, it's actually an anycast address, and will resolve to the nearest node. One thing many people forget when choosing a DNS server is that it's not just the ping time that counts - the time it takes the server to reply to the actual DNS request is what matters. e.g. while 75.75.75.75 for me (Comcast Chicago) is a 15ms trip and 8.8.8.8 is a 28ms ping, the lookup on the former (dig x.com @dns_ip) can reach 120ms while on Google's DNS it never exceeds ~35ms.

known 15y ago

Debug the connection with http://netalyzr.icsi.berkeley.edu/ http://netalyzr.icsi.berkeley.edu/

jerrya 15y ago
Thank you.