Google Introducing Public DNS

[linuxtechie]

Introducing Google Public DNS
12/03/2009 08:35:00 AM
When you type Wikipedia into your browser's address bar, you expect nothing less than to be taken to Wikipedia. Chances are you're not giving much thought to the work being done in the background by the Domain Name System, or DNS.

Today, as part of our ongoing effort to make the web faster, we're launching our own public DNS resolver called Google Public DNS, and we invite you to try it out.

Most of us aren't familiar with DNS because it's often handled automatically by our Internet Service Provider (ISP), but it provides an essential function for the web. You could think of it as the switchboard of the Internet, converting easy-to-remember domain names — e.g., Google — into the unique Internet Protocol (IP) numbers — e.g., 74.125.45.100 — that computers use to communicate with one another.

The average Internet user ends up performing hundreds of DNS lookups each day, and some complex pages require multiple DNS lookups before they start loading. This can slow down the browsing experience. Our research has shown that speed matters to Internet users, so over the past several months our engineers have been working to make improvements to our public DNS resolver to make users' web-surfing experiences faster, safer and more reliable. You can read about the specific technical improvements we've made in our product documentation and get installation instructions from our product website.

If you're web-savvy and comfortable with changing your network settings, check out the Google Code Blog for detailed instructions and more information on how to set up Google Public DNS on your computer or router.

As people begin to use Google Public DNS, we plan to share what we learn with the broader web community and other DNS providers, to improve the browsing experience for Internet users globally. The goal of Google Public DNS is to benefit users worldwide while also helping the tens of thousands of DNS resolvers improve their services, ultimately making the web faster for everyone.

Posted by Prem Ramaswami, Product Manager

Src: Official Google Blog: Introducing Google Public DNS

Looking at the way OpenDNS did, I was wondering when would Google follow the suit, looks like they did.

What is Google Public DNS?

Google Public DNS is a free, global Domain Name System (DNS) resolution service, that you can use as an alternative to your current DNS provider.

To try it out:

* Configure your network settings to use the IP addresses 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4 as your DNS servers or
* Read our configuration instructions.

Wow look at the ip, did they pay plenty?
+LT

 

[neomustdie]

awesome... lets see how it works..

regards
neo

 

[47Shailesh]

TFS.

Having it's own DNS google will be able to monitor/analyze the web traffic more effectively. Ad-sense could be first to get benefited by analytical data collected google DNS log.

IMO private/ superseded DNS also works fine and google dns won't make things blazing fast.

I'll stick to my ISP DNS for now.

 

[6pack]

cant say anything right now. let the goats eat the bait first. if nothing happen i go forward.

 

[spacenoxx]

It is definitely worth giving a shot on my MTNL DSL MTNL is great as far as speeds are concerned but its DNS servers leave a lot to be desired. Also 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4 are probably one of the easiest set of IPs to remember.

 

[YoGi-Sama]

Already on Google DNS, so far the performance is as good as OpenDNS. I haven't noticed any slowdowns or speedups... or those are probably too negligible to notice in normal usage.

But for some weird reason, google's own services (gmail, wave, picasa etc) seem little slow on MTNL connection (1mbps UL), while on my local cablewala connection (512kbps UL) they seem to be okay. Regardless the DNS servers that I use. This has been happening since almost a week.

 

[a_k_s_h_a_y]

lol, IP addresses are not like fancy numbers, vehicle numbers or cell.

Its easier to get them in blocks from ARIN.

 

[Ra.hul]

I can only see diffrence in google hosted sites rest are same till now lets see what happen next.

 

[ubergeek]

will they able to monitor my activities if i use thier dns ??

 

[linuxtechie]

will they able to monitor my activities if i use thier dns ??

Cheeky question ehh? Ofcourse they will, thats why its there.

+LT

 

[Amaresh]

I'm sticking to OpenDNS. Check out their take on Google DNS at OpenDNS Blog Some thoughts on Google DNS

He raises quite a few valid issues IMO.

 

[SledgeHammer]

will they able to monitor my activities if i use thier dns ??

No, according to their privacy policy !

 

[Emperor]

No, according to their privacy policy !

Privacy policy- stuck- in-front of HUGE GAIN

 

[amol_cool]

I'm sticking to OpenDNS. Check out their take on Google DNS at OpenDNS Blog Some thoughts on Google DNS

He raises quite a few valid issues IMO.

+1 to you. I am also sticking to OpenDNS and don't want google to gather even more data about me!

However the ping times for OpenDNS are almost double for me as compared to Google DNS. So google scores here for sure!

 

[ravi_9793]

for testing, right now I am using Google DNS. Looks good.

 

[vishalrao]

opendns will surely have "comments and concerns" since google is threatening their revenue model... this can wipe them out...

i believe i will switch to google dns for sure to avoid opendns ads/redirection/hijacking...

 

[=CrAzYG33K=]

Never felt the need to use OpenDNS. Probably wouldn't use this as well..