Public DNS From Google: Improve Your Security

By | January 29, 2010

Google has lately launched its new service named Google Public DNS. What does it mean and how do you use them? Here is a brief excerpt from Google:

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 you need to configure your network settings to use the IP addresses 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4 as your DNS servers.

If you decide to try Google Public DNS, your client programs will perform all DNS lookups using Google Public DNS.

How to do this in Linux? If you are a console fun, you should edit the /etc/resolv.conf file by entering these values:

nameserver 8.8.8.8
nameserver 8.8.4.4

Google promises to speed up your browsing experience, and to improve your security. Not sure about the speed, but security is the thing you need to think about. I have recently tried Comodo DNS and was very unsatisfied with its speed. Google should release something that should be faster than my ISP’s DNS, for me to use their service :-). In fact, users from small countries will see the difference, like I did.

Google Groups have relatively small amount of user warnings, and this service seems to be stable enough. You’re welcome to give it a try to decide.