Google announces Public DNS

Google has launched Google Public DNS as an alternative domain name service for any Internet user. Designed to replace the DNS services provided by ISPs or companies, Google says that its DNS will be faster and more secure than many other DNSs, and won't filter content.

"The goal of Google Public DNS is to benefit users worldwide while also helping the tens of thousands of DNS resolvers improve their services, ultimately making the web faster for everyone.", said Prem Ramaswami, Google Public DNS product manager, in a blog post.

According to the company's introductory information, "Google Public DNS [can] serve many DNS requests in the round trip time it takes a packet to travel to our servers and back... Google Public DNS makes it more difficult for attackers to spoof valid responses by randomizing the case of query names and including additional data in its DNS messages... Google Public DNS complies with the DNS standards and gives the user the exact response his or her computer expects without performing any blocking, filtering, or redirection that may hamper a user's browsing experience."

Users who want to try out the service and are comfortable with reconfiguring their network settings should use 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4 as DNS addresses, the company said.

Google has previously said it is working on other aspects of Internet infrastructure, in particular SPDY, a replacement for the HTTP protocol that's also designed to speed up network transactions and increase their security .