However, is there a better way that I missed somewhere, or did I just pick a poor DNS? (I couldn't tell you what number I used, but Comcast was no help in providing one, I can say that. I pulled one out of Google.)
It's pretty complex to say how to figure out just what's wrong. But I can at least address the question of whether your DNS server choice is a good one. Also, I'd try Comcast support. They ought to at least be able to give you a server that will work. Anyway.
Start a terminal window (it's in Applications::Utilities). At the
prompt, try "ping 123.14.12.22" where 123.14.12.22 is whatever DNS address
you were using. You should see some lines that end with "time=something."
The "something" should be less than say 250ms (that's a quarter of
a second). If it's a lot more, that's bad and will slow things down.
Next, enter "dig @123.14.12.22 www.google.com", and see what comes back. Near the end, there'll be a line that says "query time." If the query time is more than 250ms, that's not a good choice. Faster is better, because a lot of things you do require several DNS lookups.
As an aside, what I think is a comcast nameserver that gives me around 200ms responses is 206.228.179.10. You might try that and see if it works better.
It's entirely possible that someone that knows something about networking could diagnose your problem. If you have a friend that does, I suggest offering to make them coffee and treats if they assist you. As a last ditch, of course, you could pay someone. But it doesn't sound like it's that urgent. Good luck.
Mike Beede
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