Steve Gibson, the host of Security Now, has published a new freeware tool; DNS Benchmark.  Like all of Steve’s freeware, it’s a stand-alone executable (great for USB drives) and is very compact – at less than 200k.

I haven’t tried out this final release, but did experiment with an early version.  It’s a great tool for power users and/or anyone maintaining a network.  The primary purpose of DNS Benchmark is to provide speed tests and other information about publicly available Domain Name Servers, since the ones you’re using now may not provide the fastest or most secure service.