When we connect to the Internet from home or from our mobile phone, by default our device uses the DNS servers that our telephone operator has configured by default. These DNS are not always the best, as we saw a while ago in the post “ The 10 best free public DNS servers ”.
If you are concerned about your privacy and do not want your internet provider to know the pages you visit, or you simply want to improve speed and be able to access websites blocked by your provider, then you may be interested in setting up an alternative DNS server.
What is a DNS server?
If you still don’t know exactly what a DNS server is, you’ll be interested to know that it is a huge database that “translates” the URL addresses of web pages into IP addresses. This way, you can enter sites like “facebook.com” without having to manually type the IP address “157.240.5.35” of their server.
Of course, if we have a DNS server that is a little slow when it comes to performing these “translations”, this will make the pages take longer to load. If you want to improve internet connection response times on an Android device, the best thing you can do is try a different DNS server than the one configured by default.
How to use the fastest public DNS for your Android device
Since we are going to change the DNS server, what we will do is start with a public DNS server, which is usually free. These servers are spread all over the world and will offer us better or worse performance depending on our geographical location.
To find the best DNS server for our specific location we will use a free application called NetOptimizer.
- First, go to the Google Play Store and install the NetOptimizer app.
- Open the app. You can skip the initial usage tutorial.
- Once inside the main screen, you will see that there are 3 tabs in the top menu. Scroll to the second tab and press the “ Scan DNS ” button.
- Once the scan is complete, NetOptimizer will show us a list of all public DNS servers and the response time they offer for your current location.
- Select the fastest DNS. To do this, look at the response times in milliseconds that appear in green right next to each server. Tap “ Use it ” to establish the connection automatically.
- The application will create a VPN tunnel to the selected DNS server. Click on “GOT IT” and “Accept” to make the connection.
That’s all! When you want to use the default DNS with your teleoperator again, simply press the “ Deactivate ” button that appears on the NetOptimizer home screen.
After testing the application we see that it works fluidly, with its ease of use being its greatest virtue. However, in its free version, there is a lot of advertising. In principle, it shouldn’t be much of a hassle considering that once the DNS is configured it is not necessary to log in again. In any case, a highly recommended app for those who are not satisfied with their internet provider’s DNS servers.