Every few months, someone on a forum claims that switching your DNS to Cloudflare or Google will make your internet connection "instantly faster." I've seen that advice for years, but I'd never taken the time to test it properly.
So instead of relying on internet folklore, I spent two weeks comparing my ISP's default DNS with Cloudflare (1.1.1.1), Google Public DNS (8.8.8.8), AdGuard DNS, and DNS-over-HTTPS (DoH) enabled directly in the browser.
The results weren't quite what I expected. A faster DNS resolver can make a measurable difference, particularly when resolving a domain for the first time, but it doesn't magically make your entire internet connection faster. The real-world impact is much more nuanced than most "change your DNS now" articles suggest.
What DNS-over-HTTPS Actually Changes
Before testing anything, it's worth understanding what DNS actually does. When you type a website address such as example.com into your browser, your device needs to find the IP address associated with that domain. DNS, or the Domain Name System, performs that translation.
With a traditional DNS setup, these requests are typically sent to the DNS resolver configured by your router, ISP, operating system, or another network service. Depending on the configuration, conventional DNS traffic can be visible to parties that can observe the connection.
DNS-over-HTTPS (DoH) changes how those DNS queries are transported. Instead of sending DNS requests as conventional DNS traffic, DoH sends them through an encrypted HTTPS connection to a compatible DNS resolver.
This provides an important privacy benefit: someone monitoring the local network can no longer simply inspect the DNS requests as plain DNS traffic. However, DoH should not be confused with complete anonymity. Your DNS provider can still process the queries, and websites you connect to can still observe your connection. Other network metadata, including destination IP addresses, can also reveal information about the services you access.
The security and privacy benefits of DoH are therefore more compelling than any potential speed improvement. What is much less obvious is whether changing DNS produces a noticeable difference in everyday browsing. That's what I wanted to measure rather than simply assume.
How I Ran the Test
I wanted the experiment to reflect everyday browsing rather than a synthetic benchmark focused only on DNS resolution time. I therefore tested four different configurations, each for three to four days, under broadly similar conditions on the same fiber connection.
For each configuration, I measured DNS lookup latency using command-line DNS queries against 30 popular domains. I also measured real-world page loading across a mixture of websites, including news sites, an online store, a video platform, and several smaller blogs that were not always served from the nearest cache.
Each test was repeated at different times of day to reduce the influence of temporary network congestion. Runs that were clearly affected by Wi-Fi interference were discarded rather than included in the results.
It's important to point out what this test does—and does not—measure. DNS latency is only one small part of the time required to load a modern webpage. Once a domain has been resolved and the result has been cached, subsequent connections may not require another DNS lookup at all.
The Results: Which DNS Was Actually Faster?
The DNS lookup times differed noticeably, but not nearly as dramatically as many online discussions suggest. Here are the average results across the 30 test domains:
| DNS Provider | Avg Lookup Time | Avg Full Page Load |
|---|---|---|
| ISP Default | 38 ms | 1.92 s |
| Cloudflare 1.1.1.1 | 14 ms | 1.79 s |
| Google 8.8.8.8 | 19 ms | 1.85 s |
| AdGuard DNS (DoH) | 22 ms | 1.88 s |
Cloudflare produced the fastest average DNS response time in my test, at 14 ms. Google Public DNS followed at 19 ms, while AdGuard DNS over HTTPS averaged 22 ms. The ISP's default resolver was the slowest of the four at 38 ms.
At first glance, those numbers make Cloudflare look like the obvious winner. But DNS lookup time and complete webpage loading time are two different measurements.
DNS resolution normally occurs before the browser can establish a connection to a hostname. After the result is obtained, the browser and operating system can cache it for a period of time. The remaining page-load process involves several other factors, including network latency, server response time, TLS negotiation, content delivery networks, JavaScript execution, image loading, and browser rendering.
That is why the full-page results were much closer together. Cloudflare averaged 1.79 seconds, compared with 1.92 seconds for the ISP resolver. The difference was measurable, but it was only about 130 milliseconds in this particular test.
Pros and Cons of Switching to DoH or Custom DNS
A responsive resolver can reduce the delay when visiting a domain that has not already been cached.
DNS-over-HTTPS encrypts the DNS connection between the client and the DoH resolver, making traditional DNS inspection on the local network much harder.
Some DNS providers offer filtering for advertising, trackers, malware, phishing domains, or other categories at the DNS level.
Once DNS results are cached, changing the resolver usually has little effect on the rest of the page-loading process.
Browser-level DoH may bypass network-wide filtering, parental controls, or local DNS services such as Pi-hole unless the network is configured accordingly.
A public DNS provider may perform differently depending on your location, ISP, routing, resolver availability, and network conditions.
My Real-World Experience After Two Weeks
I started this experiment expecting to recommend Cloudflare without hesitation. Instead, the results made the answer considerably more nuanced.
During normal browsing, I could not consistently tell the difference between my ISP's DNS and Cloudflare simply by opening the websites I visit every day. The measurements clearly showed that Cloudflare was faster at DNS resolution, but the difference was rarely obvious during ordinary use.
The situation was slightly different when opening websites I had never visited before. Those first-time connections occasionally felt a little more responsive with Cloudflare and Google than with my ISP's default resolver, which sometimes introduced a brief delay when resolving unfamiliar domains.
Even then, however, the difference was measured in milliseconds rather than seconds. I would not describe the change as a dramatic "internet speed boost."
In the end, privacy and filtering turned out to be more compelling reasons to change DNS than raw performance. I kept AdGuard DNS enabled on my phone because DNS-level filtering can prevent many unwanted domains from being resolved in the first place. That is a benefit I notice more often than the few milliseconds saved during an individual DNS lookup.
My conclusion is therefore simple: change your DNS if you have a specific reason to do so, but don't expect it to transform the speed of your internet connection.
Frequently Asked Questions
Not directly. DNS primarily affects the process of resolving a domain name to an IP address. Once the connection is established, streaming quality and gaming performance depend much more on your internet connection, latency, routing, server performance, congestion, and local network conditions.
In this test, Cloudflare (1.1.1.1) delivered the lowest average DNS lookup time. However, DNS performance varies by location, ISP, routing, and network conditions, so there is no universal guarantee that it will be the fastest resolver for everyone.
Configuring DNS on your router applies the resolver to devices on your network that use the router's DNS settings. Browser-level DNS-over-HTTPS affects only the browser in which it is enabled and can be useful when you do not want to change the network configuration. The two approaches can also have different implications for local filtering and network management.
Usually, the encryption overhead itself is very small on modern devices. If DoH appears slower, the more likely cause is the performance or network path of the selected DNS resolver rather than the HTTPS encryption itself.
No. DNS does not increase the bandwidth provided by your internet connection. A different resolver may improve the time needed to resolve a domain, but it does not turn a 100 Mbps connection into a faster connection.
No. DoH encrypts DNS queries between your device or browser and the selected DNS resolver. A VPN creates an encrypted tunnel for broader network traffic and changes how that traffic is routed. DoH should therefore not be treated as a replacement for a VPN.
💬 Comments