Google has a free, public DNS
 

This may or may not be widely known, but I've just discovered it.

After weeks of painfully slow internet browsing, I determined that the problem was the unresponsive DNS maintained by my ISP (a DNS is a "Domain Name Server," one of a series of privately maintained servers that translate a URL, e.g. www. flyertalk.com, into an IP address in the form of xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx, making web-surfing possible). DNS servers are generally specific to the ISP, who will either change their IP address from time to time, or simply block access by anyone outside their network block, so as to keep non-subscribers from using them.

After some quick searching last night, I discovered that Google maintains free, public DNS servers. I tried them and they are lightning fast -- my web experience has increased dramatically, including here on FT. They would also provide a great solution for many hotels whose ISP's DNS servers are over-loaded and sluggish.

The Google DNS servers are located at:

8.8.8.8

and

8.8.4.4

If you're using a home LAN or travel router, simply set your router to point to these DNS servers (yes, I know it's redundant ;)), rather than acquire DNS automatically from the ISP. If you're accessing the Internet directly on a PC, you'll have to change the properties of your NIC, usually by assigning a hard-coded IP address, and then entering the Google servers for DNS.

Warning: Though I haven't read the TOS for the Google DNS, I'm sure that, as with everything else Google does, it is tracking surfing habits of machines that access it. If privacy is a concern, don't use the Google DNS. I don't care if Google tracks where I surf (and it's not going to get much more than my dynamic IP address that is assigned by my ISP), and the dramatic increase in internet performance is definitely worth it to me.

Google publishes more information here:

http://code.google.com/speed/public-dns/

This was released about 2 and a half months ago and very widely publicised at the time - perhaps not on FT though.

I strongly advise caution with one of the pieces of advice in your post, which is to manually change the DNS settings in the network adapter on your PC. If you have a laptop that is used in a mixture of locations, including an office, this could limit (or prevent entirely) your ability to connect to your corporate network and internal servers.

The advice to change the DNS settings on a home router is sound, but the benefits that can be achieved from using the service are somewhat variable. In many cases the ISP DNS servers will perform significantly better than the Google ones, in other cases the Google ones will perform better. I've performed extensive testing on the service over the last 2 months and overall I would conclude that it is beneficial for most users.

You're right. I should have said that making this change to a laptop that is used on more than one LAN should be done only on an interim basis if it is required at a specific location.

Yeah, because Google doesn't track where people are going online enough yet. The only reason they released this is to track where everybody who uses their servers is going. Not saying they can track it back to my machine (though I'm sure they could if they really wanted to) but it's just one more way for Google to implement their plans to take over the world.

Not saying it's a bad thing, but Google does not do anything just to be nice.

I just use OpenDNS.

www.opendns.com

It is better than my ISP, AT&T's DNS sever.

I am using Lenovo's Access Connection network profile switching utility. It is pretty easy to setup a specific profile for this DNS address.

Windows7 doesn't allow entering these single digit addresses for some reason. WindowsXP and Access Connection utility accepted these addresses fine.

I heard they also have a search engine.

I set up my Win7 home machine to use it this morning without any difficulty. What problem are you having?

I second the OpenDNS recommendation - I've used it for two years.

208.67.222.222
208.67.220.220

+1.

I also use one of Verizon's servers as a backup to OpenDNS just because I saw it publicized as a good fallback. I believe it's at 4.2.2.1.

I use OpenDNS exclusively. It works perfectly. AND it includes free extras like domain filtering if you want it.

Since I started routing all my traffic through OpenDNS, I've noticed considerable bumps in my browsing speed. Much faster than the ISP-based DNS servers.

I'll third it. I've been using it at work with 40 employees at three offices using it 20+ hours per day for several months with fast service (37ms pings to the closest server, which is Seattle) and no issues. I appreciate its default protection against known malware/phishing sites and their commitment to information security.

You also get customization options to filter extra content, but for a solo person like you, that's less of an advantage (it becomes hard to administer when you're on the move, since OpenDNS identifies you by your IP address--which, of course, changes as you move between networks) and likely isn't really a benefit (do you really need to limit yourself from e-commerce and video sites?). But the default protection offered without an account is a bit of an extra reassurance, even if you have good anti-malware software on your system.

Unlike many (and like the OP), I don't have an overriding concern with giving Google access to my data or surfing habits--when Google's solution is better. But when a product superior to Google exists AND doing so avoids giving Google yet more control over and data about my Internet experience, it seems logical to explore that option.

Here's a blog post about Google versus OpenDNS written by the founder of OpenDNS:

http://blog.opendns.com/2009/12/03/opendns-google-dns/

Obviously, that's a bit of a biased perspective, but you can find many other views on the differences between the two (both in functionality and response time) by searching for something like "opendns vs google dns." Here are a few of the first links of that search, which are informative:

http://blog.browsermob.com/2009/12/g...g-performance/
http://www.manu-j.com/blog/opendns-v...is-better/405/
http://forums.opendns.com/comments.p...ID=5578&page=1

It appears that OpenDNS is generally slightly faster in the U.S., while Google may have a slight advantage in some other parts of the world. Google also (at least at the current time) does return an NXDOMAIN result if the domain does not exist, whereas OpenDNS (unless otherwise configured, which would be hard to do with the always-changing IP of a mobile laptop) will return the IP of its search page (this behavior can break some [usually poorly-written] software if it depends on receiving an NXDOMAIN result for a dead domain name).

I found the bash script on this page rather illuminating, adding in my usual sites. (including flyertalk, etc).

http://www.manu-j.com/blog/opendns-a...dns-rocks/403/

When an address is not cached by the local ISPs nameserver, it's painfully slow. for me opendns gives consistent times, even though ping times to the mainland are much slower ( > 2x for opendns.com) than to the local ISPs nameserver.

Interesting. I will try using opendns for a while and see how it goes. I always assumed it wouldn't work very well for me with ping times in the 88ms range, but it seems to be much better than using the ISPs (Hawaiiantel) nameserver.

And I guess that article and script might be interesting for those outside of N. America as well.

Prevent OpenDNS From Redirecting Google Searches – Fix for Firefox & IE Address Bar

http://www.labnol.org/software/brows...s-bar-ie/2662/

How right you are!
I have been using google less in many ways. Balance things out a bit by using Bing to search and yahoo for mail etc..... Still use g, just a little less than B4.