lodev.name

Google public DNS

Today Google unveiled their Public DNS service, a publicly available recursive DNS service much like OpenDNS. Google’s aim is to “provide end users with an alternative to their current DNS service.”

It’s a bit unclear what features one should expect, besides speed, that OpenDNS doesn’t already offer.

Quick comparison:

Google DNS servers are a bit easier to remember: the nameservers are 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4. OpenDNS uses 208.67.222.222 and 208.67.220.220
uses the global load balanced infrastructure by Google, which usually works very well and fast (unless they accidentially blackhole a part of the net) – OpenDNS has a somewhat similar distributed, albeit a bit smaller infrastructure.
Google explicitly does not provide wildcard results to redirect users in case of typo’s. RFC purists will agree with Google that “Sometimes, in the case of a query for a mistyped or non-existent domain name, the right answer means no answer”. OpenDNS takes the opposite approach by providing users with search results when a page is offline.
Google doesn’t seem to offer a feature like SmartCache that can show you cached versions of a page after it gets knocked offline due to Slashdotting/Fireballing

I’m going to try out GPDNS on a few systems and check the performance, but I’m not sure if I will use it as my primary DNS service any time soon.

Google Public DNS is another step in the way of Google becoming synonymous with “the web” or even “the net”.
As Laurie put it:
“Dear Google: you are supposed to be a site on the Internet, not be the entire Internet all by yourselves. Public trust only goes so far.”

Others agree that this seems a bit creepy. (Of course, OpenDNS has got its criticisms as well. - Gruber likes Google better.)

One thing to remember – take out your tinfoil hat:

Whilst Google’s motto is “don’t be evil” and their mission is to “organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful”, they’re primarily an ad company.

They make money selling ads. Any tool that better helps them detect user patterns helps them to deliver even more targeted advertising. When you’re using the Google DNS servers, it’s trivially easy for them to ‘watch’ you even when you’ve cleared all your cookies and aren’t surfing on one of the many top web properties where they’re present, be it through an acquisition (Youtube), an ad deal (Myspace), the advertising network used (Doubleclick / Adsense) or one of the many free tools they provide that provide useful information, but also feed directly into their giant database. (Google Analytics).

Jason Kottke and John Gruber believe Google’s motives are speed, speed, speed. Their privacy policy regarding Google Public DNS sounds OK, so this might be true. Their track record however is not completely flawless. I don’t want to sound like a crazy conspiracy theorist. I’m just imagining the possibilities… (Man, now I even sound more like Glenn Beck )