Thanks, that is interesting, especially the second URL. It mirrors my experience, expecially with non-Mozilla browsers.
Appreciate your comment on running squid to cache DNS (I set up bind as a cacheing server), but a cache can only retain addresses that have already been resolved. Any new lookups won't be affected.
I'm no expert, but I don't think it's just that it works as a cache, more that it can manage to do several parallel lookups. Whatever the reason, it works.
The thing that makes me think something else is going on here is the fact that I ran SuSe on my DSL account without these problems showing up. When I switched to cable, the slow DNS was apparent immediately.
I'm told that some ISPs do their own proxying. Perhaps you switched to one that doesn't. It's not DSL that's the reason; I had my problem using DSL, but I know of someone who was fine with cable. Regards David Hart