Excessive Packet Loss
 

Wifi is my house is unreasonably slow and unreliable. I use chrome, and regularly get the "dns lookup failed" page, so after a friend recommended changing dns server to 208.67.222.222 with echo nameserver 208.67.222.222 > /etc/resolv.conf with no improvement, i ping's said ip address and it looks like i'm getting between 15 and 45% packet loss. any ideas?

If you loss pings than this is not problem with DNS. Try to changing channel of your router or Access Point, as todays most channels are occupied. Best if you could scan all channels, for example if you have Android phone, there is application for this (WiFi analyzer). Very probably there is also a tool for Linux, but I don't known any. Check your signal strength, maybe you are just too far or there are too many obstacles on the way of your signal.

208.67.222.222

OpenDNS is not bad
but i find that i get better service with google
8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4

My computer says wifi signal is at full strength, and the android app only says i'm the only network on this channel. Neither google server made much of a difference. i'm baffled

Well, dns is built on top of lower layer protocols, and if the lower layers don't work, DNS is going to struggle, too. There may be a little relief availab le by using, eg, dnsmasq, to give you some level of caching, but you'd be better off fixing the problem rather than trying to put sticking plasters all over it.

OK, so where is it going wrong? Run a traceroute to your DNS server, which should give you a more-or-less listing of the ip's between you and there. Ping the nearest. Do you get a packet loss? If that's ok, move on to the next closest ip. At some point, you should be able to say "I get packet loss between here and here". That's the problem that you have to fix.

I'm betting it'll be your wifi link, but I could be wrong - we'll only know when you have actual evidence. If it is beyond your premises and beyond the ISPs first IP, there is a chance that changing the DNS server will help, otherwise you'll have the problem whatever ip you use for your DNS server.

What dose "netalzr" have to say
http://netalyzr.icsi.berkeley.edu/

there is also a possibility that ipv6 is timing out , if it is trying to be used on a ipv4 ONLY service

try disabling ipv6 in dns lookup and in dchp