Google announces free public DNS servers.

Thursday 03 December 2009 at 19:56.
Tags: dns, free, google, internet, services

It could be said that DNS is one of the services which underpins the Internet by translating hostnames (like drwho.virtadpt.net) into the IP addresses which are actually used under the hood (such as 66.93.100.253). Unless you remember the IP addresses of the sites you usually visit or you have them hardcoded on your system, if your local DNS isn't available there isn't a whole lot that you can do online. Scattered around the Net are publically available DNSes that you can configure your machine to use in the event that something goes wrong with your ISP (which would not impact connectivity per se, only your computer's ability to resolve hostnames). Everyone's favorite pre-Singularity lord and master Google has brought their own public DNSes online for everyone to make use of should you desire to (or in case your ISP is doing something hinky, like filtering your net.access by controlling DNS). If privacy and/or anonymity are your concern I strongly suggest that you check out the Google Public DNS Privacy Policy, which lays out what they will and will not record and how long they'll keep it for.

For the record, the IP addresses are 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4.

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two comments.

I’m torn. Google already controlled my search. Now I use Google Apps for Domains, so they’ve got my email. And Chat, with GoogleTalk, turning over DNS, and the only thing left would be to make them a default gateway, and they’re the new AOL.

I’m not sure where I’ll draw the line…

`Lex Pendragon () (URL) - 04-12-’09 23:00

I don’t really know, either. Most of my domain is housed in their network, also, and they were the first to put together a web IM client that a) didn’t suck so hard it was unusable, and b) even works on mobile phones.

It’s important to remember, however, that there are still options out there. There are still search engines (with varying levels of usefulness) and other collaborative services.

The Doctor () (URL) - 05-12-’09 15:53

Antarctica Starts Here.

Google announces free public DNS servers.