Does a SmartDNS affect connectivity speed?

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jamesplay

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#154481 29-Oct-2014 14:20

Next year I'll be moving house and will likely be getting 200/20 fibre from BigPipe
I'm considering a subscription to a service like UnoTelly, so I can use my Roku with the DNS settings, however I will need to change the DNS settings of the VPN on the router.
Will the change of DNS settings significantly affect connectivity to services/websites?

Thanks.

michaelmurfy

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#1164362 29-Oct-2014 14:51

I use DNS4ME and find no speed difference on 100/50mbit UFB.

Michael Murphy | https://murfy.nz
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ripdog

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#1164445 29-Oct-2014 16:06

Smart DNS works by providing forged records for certain domains - bbc.co.uk, netflix.com, etc. These entries point to the DNS vendor's services rather than the original service. They are proxies which sit in the non-geoblocked countries and trick the service into thinking you're a domestic user.

So they do add an additional hop to connections to the unblocked services, but serve the same records for all other sites, thus not affecting performance.

One other thing to be aware of is that DNS is sometimes used to direct users to the closest server for CDNs. Unotelly etc are international services and may not direct you to the closest CDN node, slowing down sites which rely on those. AFAIK this is a theoretical problem, I've seen no evidence that Unotelly or anyone else has messed up records.

richms

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#1164446 29-Oct-2014 16:08

IME using the auckland unotelly dns server doesnt impact speeds from CDNs to the point that I care.

Richard rich.ms