Most liked posts in thread: Google DNS - Why?

When I was in Iraq the sat. internet service we had for personal use was intolerably slow and using a pair of alternate DNS seemed to help speed. I guess this helps in a way.
Otherwise I'd imagine Google gets more benefits from offering a DNS service than individual users will, maybe future versions of the Chrome browser or the Google OS will use this allowing them a better view of what people are doing online so they can maximize revenue possibilities.

 

That would probably be it!!

 

Eh. I have three DNS set up. Two directly from my ISP. Third is a top level DNS server from Sprint. Never had a problem, so if it ain't broken...

 

Is it something like OpenDNS? OpenDNS gives me noticeably improved performance for web browsing. I use it while connected mobile but not for internal networks in the office because I don't want to bother with configuring it for internal names.

 

Multiple dns servers located around the world. Content filtering. Speed benefits. (my timewarner dns server are slow). Some ISP use DNS to help redirect and change content without the end users knowing.

They probably are offering some kind of cloud dns for corp use to load balance servers. There many many more reasons Im just being lazy and dont feel like talking about work stuff .

 

Hmmm.... I gotta play with this. I have time warner and it definitely is slooooow to resolve sometimes...

 

HOLY SMOKES!!!!!!!!!

Browsing is SCREAMINGLY FAST now compared to what I was seeing with TW's servers... stunning.

I'm running Chrome FWIW.

 

I've used OpenDNS in the past, but they do unusual things to Google domains sometimes and more than once I've lost access to Google pages, till I switched to an alternate DNS! So I don't use OpenDNS any more.

It's possible for Google to provide faster DNS, which might very slightly increase initial loading speed of a page - but mostly web pages are driven by the server speed and the connection speed, not really the DNS. Also, most computers will cache DNS addresses after first access for a while, reducing any benefit to sites you visit regularly.

One benefit I would use is that of entering non-domains or misspelt domains; here in Florida if I type only (for example) motoringalliance (without the .com), then the local (roadrunner) DNS shoves the entry to an RR-branded search page. Hopefully Google DNS would simply forward me to the .com version (although they might also decide to forward to a Google search page - I've not tested it yet).

I worry that if everyone decides to try it, it'll negate the benefits by slowing down the service!

 

Ha told you so! I was having all kinds of issues with youtube, netflix and hulu using timewarner. As soon as I switched dns servers I could watch it without it constantly changing quality and rebuffering.

 

Um, woah. At work this helps SOOOO much! Thanks Nathan for pointing this out.

Page lookups are so fast now they look like a blur of text (Firefox). Before, it was fingers drumming on the desk.

 

Ian... I hear you... and had never considered switching DNS previously because I had the same understanding... but in retrospect I was getting LOTS of "resolving" pauses in the browser status line while web pages with ad content were loading - those pregnant pauses for the ad server redirects were adding up to a noticeable amount of latency... much more than "very slightly"... and since the ad servers are pointing lots of different places to resolve content, that part of the load isn't benefiting much from caching.

My current scientific observation of performance does not match my previous hypothesis. So instead of throwing out the offending data like the AGW "scientists", I've revised my hypothesis and admitted that my previous view of this was incorrect.

 

Hmmm ... so we have a new test of badly created / overly advertised websites then! Yuk

 

So. I just switched the router down here in Florida to 8.8.8.8 ... we're here only sometimes, so our connection is low cost cable (<1MB down).
Amazingly, it made most sites I just tested, much snappier - Google (of course), Engadget, even LifeHacker (which has been awful slow this week), as well as improving my own GBMINI.net

Only site I've checked that seems unaffected, is this MotoringAlliance! Oh, MINI2 / NAM / etc seem not very improved also; maybe they are database slowed rather than DNS slowed.

 

Shows how good design gives good performance; and poor design suffers unless the rest of the internet is perfect!

I was (and am) most amazed by Massachusetts Motoring Club - Index - a local North East MINI website; I have a habit of clicking unread MINI forum links, toggling back to the list, then going through all loaded pages at leisure (this is more before I used a browser that automatically loaded in a "background" tab). Their performance is such that the page would mostly load up in the time it took me to click the mouse back to the original page!

 

A few things here...I'm by no means an expert, but, my company hosts one of the root DNS servers for the internet.

Google's DNS servers are not top-level or authoritative like Neustar or Verisign (meaning Google only relays info from them but can't decide on its own how to do IP translations). They do however do page-caching from Google's web crawlers which is one of the reasons for the snappy response.

The GOOD thing here for end-users - net-neutrality. Not relying on your ISP means no content filtering. Google doesn't do this out of altruism - the upside is they get detailed market data on what people are searching on, even if they never hit anything related to Google (for example, an end user with Google DNS settings that searches on bing.com will still yield data for Google to use). Google has a separate privacy policy for DNS that will delete any data within 24-48 hours after doing the lookup (MORE than acceptable).

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