If I had not been plagued by slow, hanging DNS servers at some of the locations from which I do my computing, I wouldn’t be so excited by Google’s new public DNS service.
Since I am a victim of slow DNS (and I already pick/choose my DNS servers in some instances to mitigate this problem), I thought Google’s DNS service to be a worthy idea.
Today I decided to try it. For those who don’t want to click over to my original article who know how to change the DNS servers in their computer’s network-connection information, the Google servers are at:
8.8.8.8
8.8.4.4
I plugged those into one of my network profiles today (with the new, improved NetworkManager app in GNOME, it’s easy to create new “connections,” and I did just that.
And after a few hours using the Google DNS servers, I can safely say that the service is ultra-fast.
The time between hitting the Enter key (after typing in a Web address) and having the page begin to build is so short that it’s difficult to measure.
And lowering the time for DNS lookup makes Web browsing that much more seamless.
Just to see what Google is doing with “bad” URLs, i.e. those that are not registered domain names, I typed in a few. Would I be taken to a Google search page for the term (the way some DNS services deal with faulty URLs? No. I got the standard “Server not Found” message in Firefox.
That’s good. It means Google isn’t overtly abusing the fact that I’m using it for DNS.
Some of the chatter I’ve heard about Google DNS regards whether or not Google is logging the DNS queries of the service’s users. I’m not sure about that. And that situation does warrant further investigation.
But whether or not Google is logging and/or using the DNS queries made by an individual user to target ads to that user, be aware that any other DNS server you use can do the same thing with that information.
Once again, it all comes down to how much any of us trusts Google. According to the company, it just wants to make the Web-surfing experience better, with the payoff being a better experience equaling more Web use and therefore more potential exposure to Google ads.
For now I’ll continue using Google DNS, but as usual I’ll be keeping my eye on what people are discovering/learning/opining about the service. And I’ll bet that since Google is offering DNS service, Microsoft, Yahoo and perhaps even Apple might consider similar offerings. Could happen, I suppose.
Steven Rosenberg 