A new more Windows 2000 compatible version of FastNet99 is now avaiable. Thanks Anthony.
DNS (Domain Name Server) is a service offered by your ISP; it consists of a huge table of URL names and the corresponding IP addresses, so your browser may know what is the correct IP to use for satisfying your request. However, a DNS server cannot hold all exisisting URL-IP addresses but it is linked to other DNS´s throughout the world in a hierarchical manner. In other words your web server may ask for informations to another linked DNS until it reaches a "master" DNS server that should have the complete list of IP addresses (there are only 5 "master" DNS servers in the world). This means that your request could imply many requests to other DNS servers while you are expecting for the right reply.Read more/Download
FastNet99 is based on the same idea; it holds a local table of DNS-IP addresses (the Hosts file located on your Windows directory) and tell your browser to check that table before asking the DNS at your ISP. Therefore there is a local search without generating TCP/IP network traffic at all. DNS lookups occur whenever you use URL for finding an Internet resource - so mail, FTP, gopher, IRC can all benefit.
