Tag Archives: dns

View All DNS Queries Sent From Your PC With Nirsoft DNSQuerySniffer

by on
Leave a comment
Have you ever tried digging deeper into how your computer makes a connection to a website over the internet? If yes, you might already have come across terms like IP address and DNS at some part during your research. The former is a unique address associated with each computer connected to the internet including website servers. DNS (Domain Name System), on the other hand, lets you access these IP addresses using human-friendly URLs i.e. domain names, translating the latter into the former in the blink of an eye. So in short, if you exclude DNS from the equation, you'll need to access each website using its IP address - good luck trying to remember that for every website you visit! DNSQuerySniffer is a new network sniffing application for Windows by Nirsoft that allows you to see DNS queries sent by your system to remote servers, i.e. the websites you surf while using the internet. Read More

Quickly Switch, Backup & Restore Windows WiFi Network Profiles, IP & DNS Settings

by on
2
When reinstalling Windows or upgrading to a new PC, we usually have to set up everything from scratch. We reinstall apps, re-download important files, and reconfigure several settings here and there. This includes credentials for wireless network profiles and configuring your network settings, such as the static IP and DNS that you want to use. If you’re a network administrator who is required to configure network profiles on multiple PCs and on a regular basis, such a task could take a bulk of your day's time. Network Profiles Utility can really save the day in such situations. Designed as a portable application, Network Profiles Utility can easily import and export wireless connection profiles as well as IP and DNS settings among multiple Windows machines. Read More

Restore Browser Settings & DNS When Changed By Malware

by on
1
One of the things that many malware and viruses do while attacking the computer is enable dead or inactive TCP/UDP ports to start listening to malicious external requests. This process sometimes involves shutting down browsers' native antivirus security features, which are specifically incorporated to prevent users from like threats. So, unless you deploy a smart malware detection solution, you may not be able to find and remove the bugs that surreptitiously deteriorate your browser's performance. Most antivirus suites are programmed to detect the malware only when they are accessed or moved to main memory as a part of the basic application operation request. Even if it's not loaded into the memory, it can change the browsers' native features that help prevent external attacks. Developed by Anvisoft, Browser Repair offers a robust solution to tackle malware and threats that attempt to change browsers’ native features. As of now, it supports only Internet Explorer, but has some options, which can resolve issues that you may be facing in other browsers as well. Read More

eToolz Brings The Most Useful Network & Web Tools Under One Hood

by on
1
Do you hate using multiple network tools for performing required tasks, including domain lookup, resolve DNS, ping domain, trace route and more? eToolz is a light-weight, portable application suite that includes a total of 10 most useful network utilities, enabling you to perform numerous network-specific operations from one window. The application has been specifically built to help network administrators diagnose and resolve a wide range of network-related issues. While the application comes packed with superior-alternatives to various Windows command line utilities, including Tracert, Ping etc, it hosts a number of web-related tools as well, that allow you to view page rank of any website, view domain whois information, verify email address, extract and view HTTP header info from given URL, and connect to internet time servers. Read More

Edit & Restore Windows Hosts File And Block Websites With Host Mechanic

by on
1
Host Mechanic is a portable application to edit, delete and restore the Windows default hosts file. This application makes it easy to add entries to Windows hosts file; you won't have to navigate to system32/drivers/etc folder every time just to add new domains and change mapped IPs. All you need is to launch the application, enter the domain followed by IP address to add the domain entry to hosts file. Moreover, it lets you restore the Windows hosts file and block websites by mapping them with localhost. For those who aren't familiar with hosts file, it allows users and authenticated applications to map domains with defined IPs to either block the access or boost the access speed. Read More

Simon: Monitor Website Changes And Track Server Failures & DNS Invisibility

by on
Leave a comment
Website monitoring utilities help users identify all the surreptitious changes made to website as well as analyze the causes of server failures, domain invisibility and FTP connections issues. If you manage multiple websites and need a tool that can conduct HTTP tests to find websites changes and server failures, monitor FTP connection for uploaded files, query DNS to check if domain is accessible and run simple PING command to check remote location access, server response time and packet loss, Simon is a solid pick. It’s an application for Mac OS X that includes 4 monitoring services including DNS, FTP, Ping and Web. These services define the criteria of monitoring the remote servers and websites. You can use HTTP service to instantly detect changes and server failures for a website, apply DNS check to keep tab on domain visibility and employ FTP service to identify changes made to uploaded files. Read More

Windows DNS Changer: Switch Between Popular DNS Servers

by on
2
Domain Name System or DNS provides name resolution for domain names against their numerical identifiers.This is because the Internet maintains two principal namespaces, i.e. the domain name and the IP address system. A DNS Server provides translation between these two namespaces. For example, it is much easier to remember the Domain name www.addictivetips.com, instead of having to remember an IP such as 46.4.38.82. Name resolution by a DNS Server simplifies the task of the end user in terms of remembering the individual IP address, for accessing each website. When you enter a websites URL in the browser’s address bar, this name resolution is provided by your ISP’s DNS server. Read More

Cache DNS Results To Boost Internet Speed With DnsSpeeder

by on
Leave a comment
One way to boost internet speed is to use freely available open DNS services. You can switch between different DNS services other than provided by your ISP to check which service provides best results. If switching DNS services doesn’t help, you can try an application which attempts to cache DNS queries to mitigate the time required in looking up IPs of requested domains. DnsSpeeder is DNS proxy server which provides you with just that. It automates the whole process of storing DNS results on your local machine. Being a proxy server, it replaces your primary DNS server address to localhost. When DNS request is received from client, it looks up the IP addresses of the requested domain from local cache instead of fetching required info from your ISP to speed up internet access. In case, it fails to find the IP address of requested domain, it uses certain DNS services to return resolution results back to client. Read More

Perform DNS Benchmarking With Domain Name Speed Benchmark

by on
3
The Internet is based on IP addresses. Every time you use a domain name, a DNS service must translate the name into the corresponding IP address. For example when you type www.addictivetips.com, DNS translates it in relation to 78.46.99.12. DNS (Domain Name System or Service or Server), translates domain names into IP addresses. As the human brain is far likely to remember a word or phrase such as addictivetips.com instead of an IP address. DNS saves us from the impossible task of remembering hundreds of thousands of IP addresses. DNS name servers can have performance and timing issues. DNS resolution either works or it doesn’t. DNS benchmarking tools test the performance of DNS name servers and have the ability to determine whether a particular DNS name server is available, can compare response times of a specific DNS name servers (against publically-available DNS servers), can create a chart (which ranks DNS name servers according to their response times), number of timeouts, and other important parameters. Read More

Windows Server DNS 2003 / 2008 Monitoring Management Pack

by on
Leave a comment
DNS (Domain Name System or Service or Server), translates domain names into IP addresses. As alphabetical domain names are easier to remember as compared to IP addresses, therefore, the human brain is far likely to remember a word or phrase such as addictivetips.com instead of an IP address. The Internet however, is based on IP addresses. Every time you use a domain name, a DNS service must translate the name into the corresponding IP address. For example when you type www.addictivetips.com, DNS translates it in relation to 78.46.99.12. DNS saves us from the impossible task of remembering hundreds of thousands of IP addresses. Microsoft recently released Windows Server DNS 2003/2008/2008 R2 Monitoring Management Pack. This management Pack (as the name implies), monitors DNS infrastructure health, availability and performance on Microsoft Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2008 32-bit and Windows Server 2008 R2. Read More

AthTek NetWalk – Network Monitoring, Packet Sniffing & Analysis

by on
Leave a comment
AthTek NetWalk Personal Edition is a robust application to help in the administration of all kinds of networks. It is particularly useful for new network administrators who wish to gain in depth knowledge about network infrastructure and management. AthTek NetWalk contains graphical representations of the network with the use of advanced packet sniffing, to help project the network state in statistical and graphical format. Read More

Monitor And Troubleshoot Multiple Hosts (Networks) With Pinkie

by on
Leave a comment
You must have noticed that over the last few days we have covered some articles regarding network troubleshooting via the command prompt. There are many GUI (Graphical User Interface) based network troubleshooting tools as well that can help you trace a route, ping multiple hosts, perform forward and reverse DNS lookup, etc. Pinkie is a suite of network troubleshooting utilities pack into one easy-to-use graphical interface, that allows users to troubleshoot multiple network related problems. Read More

Advantages Of Nslookup Command Line For Common Users

by on
Leave a comment
Windows command line utility is often neglected by many users, simply because they hardly know the about the slew of features it holds. Many useful applications operate directly from CMD and one of them is Nslookup. It is a network administration command-line tool used widely by system and network administrators. It is used for querying the Domain Name System (DNS) to obtain domain name or IP address mapping or for a specific DNS record. In this article we will explain the benefits that can be dervied by a common user from the nslookup command line. Read More

Explanation Of IP Config Command Lines And Their Functions

by on
Leave a comment
Having knowledge of the command prompt is considered unnecessary in the wake of several applications and online tools that identify and resolve many issues for the average user. However, many people don’t realize that knowledge of the command prompt is still an effective requirement. Following are some essential command prompt commands that are not only widely used by network professionals,  but can also be quite handy for the average PC user to identify and resolve network related issue. Read More

Create Network Profiles And Conduct Speed Tests To Find Best Connection

by on
3
Earlier, we reviewed an application NetCon Manager which lets you create multiple profiles for saving different network profiles. The application usage is based on the fact that your PC at home and in office must have different network settings. For instance, if you carry laptop/netbook everywhere, it’d be tiresome to configure network settings each time you move back & forth between office and home. Today we have yet another network profile manager – myIPTool, which simplifies the whole procedure of configuring network settings each time you move to different location. Compared with NetCon Manager, it has one novel feature which gets it over the line – Speedtest. You can save multiple profiles in it and conduct a speed test to find out the best connection available. Read More

DNS Benchmark: Local And Remote DNS Nameserver Performance Benchmark

by on
1
DNS Benchmark is a benchmark utility which is developed to analyze open DNS servers speed and other response-time related parameters to let you decide which DNS server should be used. According to the developer, it is built to check ‘How fast and reliable your ISP’s DNS server is, when compared to other open DNS servers’? It conducts several tests and generate a detailed report, which lets you do DNS server reliability and speed comparisons. Read More

Quickly Switch Network Settings With NetCon Manager

by on
3
NetCon Manager is a simple utility which lets user create multiple profiles to carry different network settings. It comes useful in instances when you are required to use specific type of network setting with different IP address, gateway, and especially DNS server address. It allows you to create profile on-the-go without having to change the settings manually, which is a bit tiring. You can instantly switch to other profile having specified network settings and create as many profiles as desired. Read More

Find Out Fastest Open DNS Server With DNS Jumper

by on
1
Couple of days back we covered an efficient Public DNS Server Tool which lets you change DNS server in realtime along with allowing you to enter list of customized DNS server addresses. Yet again we have came across another useful tool namely; DNS Jumper which promises the very same functionality with enhanced options. It contains huge list of Open DNS servers to quickly change them on-the-fly and an effective OpenDNS server analyzer to quickly find out the fastest among the list. Read More

Quickly Change Public DNS Server Address On-The-Fly

by on
Leave a comment
DNS (Domain Name System) acts as a database repository for internet and translates hostnames to IP addresses. It is structural naming system for all the components or resources connected to Internet. Recently many DNS servers have been made public which uses far better protection layers and promises improved speed. Some of them among the long list are; OpenDNS, Google, Norton, etc. Changing DNS server address in Windows is not that easy for novices, as it requires some advanced steps to be taken. To instantly change the DNS server to your own customized list or using other open DNS servers, you can try out Public DNS server Tool. Read More