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Turning off DNS encryption can make websites begin resolving faster on a particular network, but that does not mean the broadband connection itself gained download or upload capacity. The difference may come from DNS lookup time, the resolver, or the setup cost of an encrypted connection—and it can come at the expense of privacy for DNS queries in transit.
What “faster” means when you change DNS settings
DNS translates a domain name, such as a website address, into an IP address before a device connects. A slow lookup can delay the start of a page load, so faster DNS responses may make browsing feel more responsive. They do not, by themselves, show that your internet connection can transfer more data per second. To claim faster broadband, measure download and upload throughput separately.
A router setting can affect DNS handling for devices that use the router’s DNS service, but the title alone does not identify the router, firmware, resolver, encryption mode, or test method. Without those details and comparable before-and-after measurements, the reported improvement is a personal observation, not a verified network-wide speed increase.
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DNS over TLS (DoT) and DNS over HTTPS (DoH) encrypt DNS queries between a client and its resolver. DoT carries DNS over a TLS-encrypted TCP connection, commonly on port 853; DoH carries DNS inside HTTPS, commonly on port 443. A router may offer one, the other, or a setting with different behavior, so do not assume which protocol was disabled without checking its documentation. Cloudflare’s DoT overview and DoH overview describe these transports.
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Encryption can add work when a secure connection is first established. RFC 7858, the IETF’s DNS-over-TLS standard, notes that session startup can add latency and that DoT uses additional memory and CPU. TCP/TLS setup may require extra round trips. Reusing connections, keepalive, and TLS session resumption can spread that setup cost across later queries, so the impact is implementation- and workload-dependent. The standard describes protocol behavior; it is not a benchmark of a particular home router. RFC 7858
Why disabling encryption may not be the real fix
Resolver performance varies by network and client. In a study of U.S. home networks participating in the FCC’s Measuring Broadband America program, Austin Hounsel, Paul Schmitt, Kevin Borgolte, and Nick Feamster measured conventional DNS, DoT, and DoH from April 7 to May 8, 2020. The paper reports 2,693 panelists in its abstract and found that some DoT resolvers had faster median response times than conventional DNS; no one protocol or resolver was best for every client. That evidence shows that encrypted DNS is not inherently slower, but it is historical and cannot establish which option is fastest on your current network. Can Encrypted DNS Be Fast?
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If lookups slow down when encryption is enabled, possible factors include the selected resolver, the router’s implementation, and whether secure connections are reused. Disabling encryption may appear to help if it changes how queries are routed or which resolver answers them. A fair test changes only the encryption setting while keeping the resolver and other conditions constant; otherwise, the result does not isolate encryption as the cause.
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With encrypted DNS disabled, DNS queries between the device or router and the resolver are no longer protected by that encrypted transport. Depending on the network and resolver path, this reduces protection against on-path observation or tampering. It does not encrypt all of your web traffic; DNS encryption specifically protects the DNS exchange to the resolver.
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Failure behavior also depends on the mode. Google Public DNS distinguishes strict DoT, which requires a secure connection and provides no DNS service if one cannot be established, from opportunistic DoT, which does not authenticate the server and therefore does not protect against active attackers. Check the profile or router setting rather than treating every “encrypted DNS” option as equivalent. Google’s DoT documentation
How to test whether the change helped
- Record the setup. Note the router model and firmware, the setting changed (DoT or DoH, if stated), and the resolver used. Keep the resolver the same in both test conditions if you want to isolate encryption.
- Measure DNS response time. Use the same client, test domains, and time window with encryption on and off. Repeat the measurements, and distinguish cold lookups from cached ones.
- Test enough domains. Google recommends using a large domain set—more than 5,000 domains—in its Public DNS FAQ. A ping or traceroute to a resolver is not a DNS-resolution test.
- Measure throughput separately. If the claim is that the whole network gained internet speed, compare download and upload rates under similar conditions with the DNS setting as the only change. Report DNS response-time and throughput results as different measures.
For context, include the measurement tool and domain set, the number of repeated runs, whether results were cached, and whether the resolver stayed the same. Those details determine whether a quicker page start is plausibly a DNS improvement or whether another change may explain it.
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How to choose between speed and privacy
Do not disable encryption solely on the assumption that conventional DNS is faster. Compare response time on your own network, using the resolver you intend to keep, and consider how the router handles connection reuse and failures. If encryption produces no meaningful slowdown in your measurements, keeping it enabled preserves transport privacy without a demonstrated speed penalty. If it does measurably slow DNS, weigh that observed delay against the loss of protection before deciding.
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