Google gets into DNS

INTERNET SERVICES POWERHOUSE Google has launched a new service that it expects will boost web speeds and performance for users.

The leading Internet search and advertising company has inaugerated a public DNS service that users can configure to access through their own Internet connections.

DNS servers translate human readable domain names into the physical IP addresses of web, email and other Internet servers, allowing users to navigate using "Uniform Resource Location" (URL) names rather than the numerical quad-dot addresses that are actaally used to access servers on the Internet.

DNS services are normally handled by the user's Internet service provider (ISP). But Google claims that its own public DNS service will provide better performance than most ISPs currently offer.

"The average Internet user ends up performing hundreds of DNS lookups each day, and some complex pages require multiple DNS lookups before they start loading," said Google product manager Prem Ramaswami in a Google blog post.

"Our research has shown that speed matters to Internet users, so over the past several months our engineers have been working to make improvements to our public DNS resolver to make users' web-surfing experiences faster, safer and more reliable."

Ramaswami said that the goal of Google's new DNS service is not merely to accumulate customers, but also to incentivise ISPs everywhere to improve the performance of their own DNS services.

Those wishing to opt for Google as their DNS provider will need to root around in their network settings and configure them to use the IP addresses 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4 as the primary and secondary DNS servers. µ