GRC's | DNS Benchmark - Version History

“You can't optimize it until you can measure it”

DNS Benchmark Version History

	See the note below for information about the format of GRC's version numbering.

• [1.0.3824.0] –	Version 1.0 initial release of the Benchmark. Since the Benchmark's code was tested extensively in many environments by a large number of GRC's newsgroup participants prior to its release, we don't foresee many bug-fixing updates. But it might be that the Benchmark's users will have suggestions for modifications to the Benchmark's operation, or that the internal lists of resolvers and domain names will need updating.

• [1.1.3880.0] –	Version 1.1 “Global Resolver List Scanner” release. This release adds the major new capability of creating a custom “Top50” resolver list for the Benchmark to test. GRC is now maintaining a list of 4,845 DNS resolvers located around the world and the Benchmark's new “Resolver List Builder” system quickly scans every one of these resolvers to find the potentially fastest 50. Anyone who is not already using a custom list will have this offered to them after a Benchmark is completed, and it is also possible to build or rebuild this list at any time from the Add/Remove nameservers dialog. Additionally, this release updates and refines the Benchmark's built-in resolver list.

• [1.2.3925.0] –	Version 1.2 “DNS Rebinding Protection Detection” release. This release adds the major new capability of determining whether, and to what degree, DNS resolving nameservers are blocking (filtering) the return of private network IP ranges from their query replies. IPs within each of the three main private network ranges (10, 172 and 192) are checked into addition to the “localhost” address 127.0.0.1. Graphical indicator are presented to make the Benchmark's finding clear.

• [1.3.6668.0] –	Version 1.3 “Quad9 Resolvers Update” release. The Quad9 resolvers were gaining much well-deserved popularity. So the v1 DNS Benchmark was updated to add those resolvers to its built-in list.

The Introduction of Version 2

• [2.0.9465.0] –	Version 2.0 initial release of the commercial v2 Benchmark. After 16 years, the world had changed a great deal. So we spent a full year adding support for IPv6, DoT & DoH, completely updating the Benchmark's built-in resolvers, improving accuracy and speed and much much more. This 2.0 is the first commercial release of the result of that year-long effort.

• [2.0.9475.0] –	Release 2 of the commercial v2 Benchmark. A guaranteed crash would occur whenever more than 1,000,000 queries were sent. This would usually only occur when performing a 50x or 100x benchmark. This 2nd release fixes that. We received some reports of “false positive” Internet disconnected detections. The Benchmark was waiting a full 10 seconds before raising the alarm (which seemed like a long time). This 2nd release doubles that waiting time to 20 seconds. While the “Connection Lost” notice was on-screen, the running-time clock continued running. This resulted in wrong elapsed and remaining time estimates if the benchmark was resumed. That's fixed now.

• [2.0.9477.3] –	Release 3 of the commercial v2 Benchmark. Checks WINE version (on Linux/Mac) to notify its user that the 3-year-old WINE 8.0 (or older) must be updated to at least WINE 9.0 for DNS Benchmark to operate. Ctrl-C copies the text of dialogs to the clipboard to aid translations to other languages. Subtle non-critical user-interface edge-cases improved.

• [2.0.9486.1] –	Release 4 of the commercial v2 Benchmark. New Feature: After disabling a protocol in the app's system menu (under the upper-left red icon) users are now asked whether they would also like to remove the now-disabled resolvers from the loaded resolvers list. New Feature: DoH and DoT resolvers can now be added in the Add/Remove dialog and INI files by IPv4 or IPv6 address. For example: https://[2620:fe::10]/dns-query adds a Quad9 resolver as DoH. Fixed two subtle bugs along the way.

GRC's Version Numbering Format

GRC's newer software uses a version numbering system that is oriented toward automating the rapid distribution of incremental versions that are often rapidly produced during the program's development. Each of the four components has the following meaning:

[ MajorVersion . MinorVersion . DaysSince2000 . BuildOfDay ]

MajorVersion	This is the major version number of the program. It starts at 1 and is incremented by one whenever a significant enhancement in the operation of the program is released.
MinorVersion	This is the minor version number of the program. After each MajorVersion increment, the minor version is restarted at 0 and it is subsequently incremented by one whenever any smaller updates are made to the program. Since it is conceivable that the MinorVersion might not be changed if an insignificant change is made to the code, in such cases the third and fourth components (see next items) of the version number would still always differentiate the versions:
DaysSince2000	This is the number of days since the start of year 2000 — with January 1st, 2000 UTC, being day zero — when the program was “built” (assembled, linked and published on the development computer). This numbering is independent of the settings for the MajorVersion and MinorVersion.
BuildOfDay	This is the 0-based “build number” for every publicly-released “build” occurring during the build day. The first time any new instance of the program is made public on a new UTC day, that instance will carry a BuildOfDay of zero (0). Subsequent publicly released builds will increment that number to differentiate them from each other.