Faster Internet Surfing / Page Loading

At times the internet can be painfully slow, even if you are on the (alleged) faster packages.  What I do find speeds things up somewhat is making sure you have the best DNS servers listed in your network settings to make sure you are using the fastest possible.  DNS servers are basically what the computer uses to translate web page names and such like into an IP address that it can connect to.  For those interested it is explained quite well here.

But which DNS servers are the best?  Fact is it varies by location.  However, there is an application called Nambench which can run on Mac and Windows machines and, once installed, you merely run it and it will conduct a variety of tests, opening the results in a regular browser window telling you the top 3 DNS servers to use under your network settings.  In my case the top one, 'Google Public 2' (8.8.4.4), was shown has being 770% faster than the default ISP DNS server selected through the router  O0

The ap, along with instructions, can be found at the link above.  This is not Penang specific of course and can help anywhere but it's sure useful here for visitors and residents in light of slow internet speeds sometimes experienced.