DNS, or Domain Name Servers, are machines that translate the URL you enter into your browser into an IP address. Web sites are resolved by IP address not by their name. So DNS servers are maintained as master lists and do the work for us.

The IP address of the duckduckgo.com search engine is 46.51.197.89 Double click the numbers or copy and paste this IP address into your browsers address bar and it will take you to the site. Since we can never remember all the IPs we would need, DNS was created to translate for us. Some DNS servers are better than others, some ISPs have terrible DNS service. So you should set your own DNS...

First, right-click on your network manager icon in the system tray and select Edit Connections.

Click the Wireless tab, select your wireless connection and click Edit.

Click the IPv4 Settings tab, change Method to Automatic (DHCP) addresses only from the dropdown menu, add DNS servers in the DNS servers field. Always use at least 2 DNS servers, in case one is down.

You can use these, note the comma between servers:

Google Public DNS: 8.8.8.8,8.8.4.4
OpenDNS: 208.67.222.222,208.67.220.220

Or use the ones I have for East Coast USA that have been tested as the best ones.

Visit ghacks.net DNS Performance Test to get details for doing your own tests,

or if you wish to do this on a Windows machine, visit:
Steve Gibson's Page

Click Save.

Logout. Shutdown. Restart computer.

From a terminal, run nm-tool
You should see the new DNS servers listed now...

or

Above Edit Connections in step one is Connection Information click that to see the changes.