Google Public DNS now has over 70 billion requests daily

DNS servers, those things that are supplied automatically by our ISPs and all too often like to mess with our internet. Come to think of it, I am probably better off blaming my ISP's DNS servers than my modem for problems I have had in the past. This is why as of today I have switched over to Google Public DNS.

Google Public DNS has been in operation since the end of 2009 and is today coming out of an experimental service stage. In just over two years the service is now the world's most popular public DNS service with over 70 billion or 70,000,000,000 requests every day.

For those unsure of what DNS servers are and what they do, this Google blog post has a very nice analogy.

“DNS acts like the phone book of the Internet. If you had to look up hundreds or thousands of phone numbers every day, you’d want a directory that was fast, secure and correct. That’s what Google Public DNS provides for tens of millions of people.”

Since the experimental launch in December 2009, Google has enhanced its DNS server presence in Asia while adding new access points in Australia, India and Nigeria.

If you are wanting to give Google Public DNS a go it is as simple as redirecting your modems DNS server IPs to 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4. There are also IPv6 versions of Google Public DNS, more information on that can be found here.

Kitguru says: I have been using Google Public DNS for about 15 minutes now and while I haven't noticed a difference yet, according to others' experiences I should see an improvement in performance.

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