Google announced that it’s making 2 DNS servers available publicly. The servers are 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4 . They’ve also given configuration instructions on their DNS page. I configured my /etc/resolv.conf to refer to Google’s DNS. Before this I ran some quick tests using dig to compare it with OpenDNS.
$ dig @208.67.222.222 gingerjoos.com ; <<>> DiG 9.4.2 <<>> @208.67.222.222 gingerjoos.com ; (1 server found) ;; global options: printcmd ;; Got answer: ;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 1273 ;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 1, AUTHORITY: 0, ADDITIONAL: 0 ;; QUESTION SECTION: ;gingerjoos.com. IN A ;; ANSWER SECTION: gingerjoos.com. 14400 IN A 208.113.199.196 ;; Query time: 751 msec ;; SERVER: 208.67.222.222#53(208.67.222.222) ;; WHEN: Fri Dec 4 09:13:58 2009 ;; MSG SIZE rcvd: 48 $ dig @8.8.8.8 gingerjoos.com ; <<>> DiG 9.4.2 <<>> @8.8.8.8 gingerjoos.com ; (1 server found) ;; global options: printcmd ;; Got answer: ;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 2594 ;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 1, AUTHORITY: 0, ADDITIONAL: 0 ;; QUESTION SECTION: ;gingerjoos.com. IN A ;; ANSWER SECTION: gingerjoos.com. 14400 IN A 208.113.199.196 ;; Query time: 616 msec ;; SERVER: 8.8.8.8#53(8.8.8.8) ;; WHEN: Fri Dec 4 09:14:09 2009 ;; MSG SIZE rcvd: 48 $ dig @8.8.4.4 gingerjoos.com ; <<>> DiG 9.4.2 <<>> @8.8.4.4 gingerjoos.com ; (1 server found) ;; global options: printcmd ;; Got answer: ;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 34741 ;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 1, AUTHORITY: 0, ADDITIONAL: 0 ;; QUESTION SECTION: ;gingerjoos.com. IN A ;; ANSWER SECTION: gingerjoos.com. 14321 IN A 208.113.199.196 ;; Query time: 123 msec ;; SERVER: 8.8.4.4#53(8.8.4.4) ;; WHEN: Fri Dec 4 09:15:28 2009 ;; MSG SIZE rcvd: 48
Dig allows you to directly query a DNS server and get its reply. It shows stats from that query – response. The stat we’re interested in is this one
;; Query time: 123 msec
The IP 208.67.222.222 is the address of the OpenDNS server. Let’s try one more query
$ dig @208.67.222.222 mec.ac.in ; <<>> DiG 9.4.2 <<>> @208.67.222.222 mec.ac.in ; (1 server found) ;; global options: printcmd ;; Got answer: ;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 44308 ;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 1, AUTHORITY: 0, ADDITIONAL: 0 ;; QUESTION SECTION: ;mec.ac.in. IN A ;; ANSWER SECTION: mec.ac.in. 604800 IN A 210.212.232.132 ;; Query time: 389 msec ;; SERVER: 208.67.222.222#53(208.67.222.222) ;; WHEN: Sat Dec 5 12:38:57 2009 ;; MSG SIZE rcvd: 43 $ dig @8.8.8.8 mec.ac.in ; <<>> DiG 9.4.2 <<>> @8.8.8.8 mec.ac.in ; (1 server found) ;; global options: printcmd ;; Got answer: ;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 56600 ;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 1, AUTHORITY: 0, ADDITIONAL: 0 ;; QUESTION SECTION: ;mec.ac.in. IN A ;; ANSWER SECTION: mec.ac.in. 160448 IN A 210.212.232.131 ;; Query time: 121 msec ;; SERVER: 8.8.8.8#53(8.8.8.8) ;; WHEN: Sat Dec 5 12:39:06 2009 ;; MSG SIZE rcvd: 43
You can try more queries and see for yourself. At least as of now Google DNS seems to be faster.