Who in his/her right mind sign up with Google DNS?? I mean this company stores all your searches, pry in your emails, and if you sign up would know all your info..
Hm, funny, iTunes knows my name, address, phone number, credit card, every purchase I've ever made from the store, and has the ability to track down my phone to within several meters of accuracy. Seems pretty invasive to me .
Kidding aside, your ISP knows more about you than Google does. They can track every single website you go to. Google can only limit to searches. Point being, if you use the internet, you have a fingerprint with somebody. Just because Google is big doesn't mean they're evil, or that they're the only threat on the net.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tulkas
Ugh, yeah. Unless AI has become as ignorant as others that must see google as bad because the compete with Apple. I hoped that level of stupidity left with the desktop wars. Guess some people wallow in the negativity of it. Enjoy.
Being Apple fan doesn't mean hating everyone else. Almost seems like Gruber is ghost writing for AI today (kidding, they aren't that bad yet).
Not sure what's in the air today, but TUAW is doing the same thing. There were several articles posted today taking jabs at Windows Phone, Motorola, Android... pretty much anyone who is not Apple. If Gruber ain't writing for AI, he may be over at the AOL offices .
Not sure what's in the air today, but TUAW is doing the same thing. There were several articles posted today taking jabs at Windows Phone, Motorola, Android... pretty much anyone who is not Apple. If Gruber ain't writing for AI, he may be over at the AOL offices .
akamai knows my ip address, but they sure as hell don't know from which dns server i got theirs.
One way of load balancing around the world is to resolve DNS differently depending on where the user comes from.
So, a user in the UK looks up example.com and gets one IP address, while a user in Australia looks up example.com and gets a different address. I get their servers in Europe, s/he gets them in Oz.
So, it's possible to see how Google DNS can break this - if they return the same address to everyone.
But the article is as badly written as most of the replies, so it's difficult to be sure what's happening here.
As many have already said, this article is misinformed on many levels, and shows that the author doesn't really understand DNS at all.
1. DNS is simply a directory for matching human-readable names (i.e. apple.com, cnn.com, yahoo.com) with an IP address that computers understand. It doesn't have ANYTHING with setting routes (or "paths", as the author states) to/from your computer and the site!
2. the point of third-party DNS services, like Google or OpenDNS, is to speed up your surfing-- these servers are typically dramatically faster-responding than your usual ISP. Switch, and you'll see the difference.
3. Once your computer has connected to a site to download, stream, etc., DNS has no role in that process. A DNS server WILL NOT affect your download speed!
4. it is trivial for a company to block users from setting their own DNS-- simply block port 53 on the firewall (except for your main DNS server, of course). Any user setting their own DNS to anything other than the corporate DNS will be surprised to find they can no longer surf the web.
You're missing the point. Your configured DNS server has to talk to the DNS server that authoritatively resolves the hostname in question. In this specific case (AppleTV user configured for Google DNS), the AppleTV queries Google DNS for the iTunes server's IP, which is handled by Akamai; so Google DNS talks to Akamai DNS to get the authoritative record, and returns that to the AppleTV. Further, Google is permitted to cache that record from Akamai for a specific period of time (as determined by Akamai), and serve the cached record to other users. CDN's usually permit a TTL of 1 to 30 minutes. The kicker is that CDN's like Akamai often have streaming servers all over the world, and use custom DNS implementations that can do cool tricks like a geolocation against the IP address of the peering DNS server, in order to return an IP address to you that points your streaming request to a datacenter that's geographically near you. This is very important in the world of video streaming because it reduces roundtrip latency. The CDN assumes that your requesting DNS server is from your ISP and therefore likely regionally located near you, so these CDNs' tricks result in your being returned an IP address that attempts to ensure roundtrip latency is minimal. The problem that is noticed arises because Google's DNS servers are probably not geographically located near you, and with everyone around the world using them, as opposed to just regional users, a side effect is created whereby Google caches and serves you IP addresses that likely point you to an Akamai datacenter that is located far away (significantly increasing latency), and also likely overburdened because of other Google DNS users receiving the same cached DNS record. Other posters are right, though, this is not specifically a Google problem, it's also a problem with OpenDNS and other commonly used alternatives to your ISP's DNS server. In our high-bandwidth world where geolocation is key, when you give up your ISP's regional DNS for an external server that may be far away, you're going to see this issue.
akamai knows my ip address, but they sure as hell don't know from which dns server i got theirs.
Yeah, they do.
Assuming Google's DNS works like other DNS systems, Google (and your ISP) does not maintain a table of every DNS entry around the world but they do have a hints table to help them find the right address (and a cache of previous requests). If you request www.google.com, your computer asks your DNS servers for the address. Those servers, after consulting the cache, query the root servers. These servers will return "I don't know the address for these server, ask someone from this list and returns the list of servers authoritative for the .COM TLD (you can see this by using the command nslookup -q=any www.google.com a.root-servers.net). Your DNS server will then check with those servers (nslookup -q=any www.google.com a.gtld-servers.net). The servers will tell your DNS server who owns the google.com domain. Then your DNS server will query those name servers nslookup -q=any www.google.com ns1.google.com), which yields an answer. Your DNS server will cache this result and then return it to you.
Now, if Akamai's DNS servers are returning answers based on the geography of the DNS server querying it, users far from Google's DNS servers will get Akamai servers far from them which would explain why switching to your ISP's DNS servers would improve performance.
There is so much misinformation in this article it makes me angry. Link baiting is one thing, but this is flat out making stories up.
Here's a direct quote made by Google's CEO, Eric Schmidt:
Quote:
"If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place, but if you really need that kind of privacy, the reality is that search engines including Google do retain this information for some time, and it's important, for example that we are all subject in the United States to the Patriot Act. It is possible that that information could be made available to the authorities."
Big Brother is watching all of us. And Little Brother Google is helping him.
So do you want Google to know what you search for (Google Search), what documents you're working on online (Google Documents), what you buy and where you buy it (Google Checkout), your address and phone numbers and the addresses and phone numbers of everyone you know (Google Address Book), and every single web site you visit (GoogleDNS)? Really? Now exactly why would you want one single company to know all that?
Does *that* make you angry, yuu? Or are you just angry that someone is picking on poor helpless lil' ole Google.
Here's a direct quote made by Google's CEO, Eric Schmidt:
Big Brother is watching all of us. And Little Brother Google is helping him.
So do you want Google to know what you search for (Google Search), what documents you're working on online (Google Documents), what you buy and where you buy it (Google Checkout), your address and phone numbers and the addresses and phone numbers of everyone you know (Google Address Book), and every single web site you visit (GoogleDNS)? Really? Now exactly why would you want one single company to know all that?
Does *that* make you angry, yuu? Or are you just angry that someone is picking on poor helpless lil' ole Google.
Big Brother is watching all of us. And Little Brother Google is helping him.
So do you want Google to know what you search for (Google Search), what documents you're working on online (Google Documents), what you buy and where you buy it (Google Checkout), your address and phone numbers and the addresses and phone numbers of everyone you know (Google Address Book), and every single web site you visit (GoogleDNS)? Really? Now exactly why would you want one single company to know all that?
Does *that* make you angry, yuu? Or are you just angry that someone is picking on poor helpless lil' ole Google.
If I use Google to do my searching, Google knows what I'm searching. If I use Bing or Yahoo for searching, then Bing or Yahoo knows what I'm searching. Where the evil privacy concerns are or how one is more evil than the other escapes me.
Microsoft and Facebook knows the documents I use on Docs.com. Amazon, Paypal and my bank all know what I buy and when I buy it. Apple, Microsoft and Yahoo can all know my contact's addresses and phone numbers, as well as Verizon Wireless. Lastly, my ISP knows far more what websites because they actually serve the bits and can read any non-encrypted traffic... the worst DNS can know is what URLs I've been to, but not any content on the webpage itself.
So again, I fail to recognize why I should be angry? Privacy concerns about Google are no different than any other online service I use frequently, and are shared by every users of those networks. I'm sure you've left behind a digital trail of your information somewhere on the net, and even if you were very careful not to, why be more angry at Google than anyone else?
By the way, Schmit's right! Everyone deserves privacy, but don't go posting information about yourself that you wouldn't want the world to know without verifying who you're giving it to and to what end they'll store or share that information.
EDIT: Also, wanted to add that the reason Google is compliant with the Patriot Act and "Big Brother," as you put it, is because its the law. *EVERY* corporation that does business in the US that collects information is required to comply with the Patriot Act. Google isn't 'helping' any more than simply obeying the law. If you have a problem with Google, Microsoft, Apple, or any other corporation giving information to the government, take it up with your Congressman.
When will we get a decent search engine not based in the US and subject to its laws, with a policy of not storing any search data? If such a thing exists then I am ignorant of it.
No, that's not how DNS works. Your machine does an initial lookup for the address record and then your machine caches it for some period of time. Once your machine is downloading it has already connected and wouldn't need another lookup. JoeMaller doesn't post the source of his research and DED links to faulty research.
I haven't had any problems with Google DNS. I'm rather fond of Open DNS myself.
You, sir, are absolutely correct. I find it amazing that I've seen this posted on a lot of "techie" websites, you would think that a WEBSITE would know how DNS works.
The only reason adding Google DNS to your list of servers would speed up web browsing is it helps your computer find all the links to all the Ads posted on the webpages, so your page finishes drawing faster.
A balanced and rational analysis of the issue, @ranson.
In short, Your Mileage May Vary [YMMV] with regard to latency depending on the location of your DNS provider servers (ISP/OpenDNS/Google DNS) vis-a-vis the nearest Akamai server that streams your rental selection to you. Any of these DNS solutions could work out best for you or the absolute worst. As such, a little tweaking may or may not be required.
It's pretty obvious from the anecdotal evidence from the various blogs and support trails reporting the issue that the above is the likeliest explanation, and to be fair the AI article here states this clearly enough, if you make sure you are not swayed by the article's title.
What may worry many folks though is Google's past behaviour which has been nothing short of treacherous - one minute all cosy and partner-like with Apple, the next diving headlong with graceless haste into every market their erstwhile partner partakes in - smartphone handset, smartphone OS, App Store, Music Download Store, Book Store, TV streaming hardware, notebooks, and goodness knows whatever next. Couple that with the Street View / Open Wi-Fi passwords issue and some downright random utterances in response by their CEO ("You can always move house", "people want us to tell them what they should be doing" etc) and a smidgeon of paranoia is quite justified.
Linkbait or no, a lot of knowledgeable and suspicious folks are going to be watching issues like this like hawks for any dubious algorithmic activity. Once bitten, twice vigilant.
When will we get a decent search engine not based in the US and subject to its laws, with a policy of not storing any search data? If such a thing exists then I am ignorant of it.
Sounds like you are ignorant to a lot. If you think there is a search engine that doesn't store results you are living in a fantasy land. That information is priceless for many reasons. Who would you prefer to trust with that data? Russia, China, England? You can't even walk/drive down the street without being on multiple traffic cameras.
You're missing the point. Your configured DNS server has to talk to the DNS server that authoritatively resolves the hostname in question. In this specific case (AppleTV user configured for Google DNS), the AppleTV queries Google DNS for the iTunes server's IP, which is handled by Akamai; so Google DNS talks to Akamai DNS to get the authoritative record, and returns that to the AppleTV. Further, Google is permitted to cache that record from Akamai for a specific period of time (as determined by Akamai), and serve the cached record to other users. CDN's usually permit a TTL of 1 to 30 minutes. The kicker is that CDN's like Akamai often have streaming servers all over the world, and use custom DNS implementations that can do cool tricks like a geolocation against the IP address of the peering DNS server, in order to return an IP address to you that points your streaming request to a datacenter that's geographically near you. This is very important in the world of video streaming because it reduces roundtrip latency. The CDN assumes that your requesting DNS server is from your ISP and therefore likely regionally located near you, so these CDNs' tricks result in your being returned an IP address that attempts to ensure roundtrip latency is minimal. The problem that is noticed arises because Google's DNS servers are probably not geographically located near you, and with everyone around the world using them, as opposed to just regional users, a side effect is created whereby Google caches and serves you IP addresses that likely point you to an Akamai datacenter that is located far away (significantly increasing latency), and also likely overburdened because of other Google DNS users receiving the same cached DNS record. Other posters are right, though, this is not specifically a Google problem, it's also a problem with OpenDNS and other commonly used alternatives to your ISP's DNS server. In our high-bandwidth world where geolocation is key, when you give up your ISP's regional DNS for an external server that may be far away, you're going to see this issue.
Sorry, that still doesn't pass the smell test.
The CDN simply cannot assume that your DNS server is geographically located near you. If your ISP is a large provider like Comcast, Verizon, AT&T, BellSouth, etc., you're really in the same situation as if you use Google or OpenDNS.
Instead, CDN's will look up your location based on your IP address (and other magic). Just as a quick example, try looking up your location by googling "IP address location" (hint, try http://www.ipaddresslocation.org). If you don't know what you're public IP address is, look it up on http://www.whatismyip.com.
Some people are definitely experiencing AppleTV streaming issues (my dad is, while I am not. We both have AT&T Uverse, and the same data plan. Both use the same default wireless router config).
For those of you saying that's not how DNS works - Daniel isn't refering to how DNS works... he refering to how Akmai uses DNS look up information, so they can determine which server to send the streaming content from:
FTA: "CDNs like Akamai, which Apple works with to deliver iTunes downloads, use DNS lookup information to locate where users are, and then optimize content delivery via the nearest available server."
When you use a central DNS, Vs one near your home, Akmai ends up using a server to deliver to you that is less than ideal, sometimes by thousands of miles.
Further more... he wrote DNS service like Google and Open DNS and the other one... Not JUST Google... he's not singling them out or stearing away from others... he specifically wrote central DNS servers, as opposed to your local one. And he does say that the Google like ones can speed up your service-- just not if your heavy content is poorly routed. Re-read the article and drop your overly defensiveness to see what he ACTUALLY wrote.
Here in Asia, overall I have found Akamai to be quite excellent in serving all sorts of Apple-cloud-related content. In fact, stuff from Apple is some of the fastest content I can get *because* of Akamai. It is really pretty impressive - Software Updates, MobileMe (don't laugh), iTunes Store, App Store, etc. for both US iTunes Store and local iTunes Stores. The only dog is iDisk which is more or less unusable. MobileMe mail used to be troublesome at times but improved a lot this past year, either on the Apple side or my local ISPs' side.
I like OpenDNS because for most other sites it resolves everything quite fast nowadays compared to my developing-country ISPs.
But, in light of all this I'm going to stop using OpenDNS because of the amount of interaction I have with Apple cloud stuff. I think I was only using OpenDNS on my Airport connection on my MacBook and nothing else.
I considered using Google DNS but I already use Gmail, Google Search, Google Docs and once or twice I did feel things were not as optimised as OpenDNS.
We can argue DNS until we are blue in the face but at the end of the day it is pretty simple - try your connection with centralised DNS, try it with your ISP DNS. And decide for yourself.
wow, definitely experienced this problem with slowwww rentals and Google DNS. I've switched to my ISP DNS now, thanks for the article.
When I first got the new AppleTV I could not stream any rented stuff because it would always tell me it would take like 2 hours or more. I would do my renting on the Mac or iPad to Airplay it to the TV. I thought I give this idea a try. I was using OpenDNS. Change to my ISP DNS and the process to rent a movie and watch took like 30 Seconds. I watch the whole movie (The Town) and I did not experience any delays or buffing at all like I did before the change.
Comments
Who in his/her right mind sign up with Google DNS?? I mean this company stores all your searches, pry in your emails, and if you sign up would know all your info..
Hm, funny, iTunes knows my name, address, phone number, credit card, every purchase I've ever made from the store, and has the ability to track down my phone to within several meters of accuracy. Seems pretty invasive to me
Kidding aside, your ISP knows more about you than Google does. They can track every single website you go to. Google can only limit to searches. Point being, if you use the internet, you have a fingerprint with somebody. Just because Google is big doesn't mean they're evil, or that they're the only threat on the net.
Ugh, yeah. Unless AI has become as ignorant as others that must see google as bad because the compete with Apple. I hoped that level of stupidity left with the desktop wars. Guess some people wallow in the negativity of it. Enjoy.
Being Apple fan doesn't mean hating everyone else. Almost seems like Gruber is ghost writing for AI today (kidding, they aren't that bad yet).
Not sure what's in the air today, but TUAW is doing the same thing. There were several articles posted today taking jabs at Windows Phone, Motorola, Android... pretty much anyone who is not Apple. If Gruber ain't writing for AI, he may be over at the AOL offices
Not sure what's in the air today, but TUAW is doing the same thing. There were several articles posted today taking jabs at Windows Phone, Motorola, Android... pretty much anyone who is not Apple. If Gruber ain't writing for AI, he may be over at the AOL offices
I think it's because of the lunar eclipse
akamai knows my ip address, but they sure as hell don't know from which dns server i got theirs.
One way of load balancing around the world is to resolve DNS differently depending on where the user comes from.
So, a user in the UK looks up example.com and gets one IP address, while a user in Australia looks up example.com and gets a different address. I get their servers in Europe, s/he gets them in Oz.
So, it's possible to see how Google DNS can break this - if they return the same address to everyone.
But the article is as badly written as most of the replies, so it's difficult to be sure what's happening here.
As many have already said, this article is misinformed on many levels, and shows that the author doesn't really understand DNS at all.
1. DNS is simply a directory for matching human-readable names (i.e. apple.com, cnn.com, yahoo.com) with an IP address that computers understand. It doesn't have ANYTHING with setting routes (or "paths", as the author states) to/from your computer and the site!
2. the point of third-party DNS services, like Google or OpenDNS, is to speed up your surfing-- these servers are typically dramatically faster-responding than your usual ISP. Switch, and you'll see the difference.
3. Once your computer has connected to a site to download, stream, etc., DNS has no role in that process. A DNS server WILL NOT affect your download speed!
4. it is trivial for a company to block users from setting their own DNS-- simply block port 53 on the firewall (except for your main DNS server, of course). Any user setting their own DNS to anything other than the corporate DNS will be surprised to find they can no longer surf the web.
You're missing the point. Your configured DNS server has to talk to the DNS server that authoritatively resolves the hostname in question. In this specific case (AppleTV user configured for Google DNS), the AppleTV queries Google DNS for the iTunes server's IP, which is handled by Akamai; so Google DNS talks to Akamai DNS to get the authoritative record, and returns that to the AppleTV. Further, Google is permitted to cache that record from Akamai for a specific period of time (as determined by Akamai), and serve the cached record to other users. CDN's usually permit a TTL of 1 to 30 minutes. The kicker is that CDN's like Akamai often have streaming servers all over the world, and use custom DNS implementations that can do cool tricks like a geolocation against the IP address of the peering DNS server, in order to return an IP address to you that points your streaming request to a datacenter that's geographically near you. This is very important in the world of video streaming because it reduces roundtrip latency. The CDN assumes that your requesting DNS server is from your ISP and therefore likely regionally located near you, so these CDNs' tricks result in your being returned an IP address that attempts to ensure roundtrip latency is minimal. The problem that is noticed arises because Google's DNS servers are probably not geographically located near you, and with everyone around the world using them, as opposed to just regional users, a side effect is created whereby Google caches and serves you IP addresses that likely point you to an Akamai datacenter that is located far away (significantly increasing latency), and also likely overburdened because of other Google DNS users receiving the same cached DNS record. Other posters are right, though, this is not specifically a Google problem, it's also a problem with OpenDNS and other commonly used alternatives to your ISP's DNS server. In our high-bandwidth world where geolocation is key, when you give up your ISP's regional DNS for an external server that may be far away, you're going to see this issue.
akamai knows my ip address, but they sure as hell don't know from which dns server i got theirs.
Yeah, they do.
Assuming Google's DNS works like other DNS systems, Google (and your ISP) does not maintain a table of every DNS entry around the world but they do have a hints table to help them find the right address (and a cache of previous requests). If you request www.google.com, your computer asks your DNS servers for the address. Those servers, after consulting the cache, query the root servers. These servers will return "I don't know the address for these server, ask someone from this list and returns the list of servers authoritative for the .COM TLD (you can see this by using the command nslookup -q=any www.google.com a.root-servers.net). Your DNS server will then check with those servers (nslookup -q=any www.google.com a.gtld-servers.net). The servers will tell your DNS server who owns the google.com domain. Then your DNS server will query those name servers nslookup -q=any www.google.com ns1.google.com), which yields an answer. Your DNS server will cache this result and then return it to you.
Now, if Akamai's DNS servers are returning answers based on the geography of the DNS server querying it, users far from Google's DNS servers will get Akamai servers far from them which would explain why switching to your ISP's DNS servers would improve performance.
There is so much misinformation in this article it makes me angry. Link baiting is one thing, but this is flat out making stories up.
Here's a direct quote made by Google's CEO, Eric Schmidt:
"If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place, but if you really need that kind of privacy, the reality is that search engines including Google do retain this information for some time, and it's important, for example that we are all subject in the United States to the Patriot Act. It is possible that that information could be made available to the authorities."
Big Brother is watching all of us. And Little Brother Google is helping him.
So do you want Google to know what you search for (Google Search), what documents you're working on online (Google Documents), what you buy and where you buy it (Google Checkout), your address and phone numbers and the addresses and phone numbers of everyone you know (Google Address Book), and every single web site you visit (GoogleDNS)? Really? Now exactly why would you want one single company to know all that?
Does *that* make you angry, yuu? Or are you just angry that someone is picking on poor helpless lil' ole Google.
Here's an article you should read: Google's Schmidt Roasted for Privacy Comments
And another one, by Old Man Grumpus himself: Eric Schmidt, Google and privacy
Here's a direct quote made by Google's CEO, Eric Schmidt:
Big Brother is watching all of us. And Little Brother Google is helping him.
So do you want Google to know what you search for (Google Search), what documents you're working on online (Google Documents), what you buy and where you buy it (Google Checkout), your address and phone numbers and the addresses and phone numbers of everyone you know (Google Address Book), and every single web site you visit (GoogleDNS)? Really? Now exactly why would you want one single company to know all that?
Does *that* make you angry, yuu? Or are you just angry that someone is picking on poor helpless lil' ole Google.
Here's an article you should read: Google's Schmidt Roasted for Privacy Comments
And another one, by Old Man Grumpus himself: Eric Schmidt, Google and privacy
What does anything that you wrote (privacy) have to do with what the user you quoted said or what the article is about (DNS performance issues)?
Not a damn thing.
DNS has nothing to do with the speed at which data is flowing through the pipe.
DNS as a reason for slow Apple TV downloads (or any other data downloads) doesn't make sense.
Big Brother is watching all of us. And Little Brother Google is helping him.
So do you want Google to know what you search for (Google Search), what documents you're working on online (Google Documents), what you buy and where you buy it (Google Checkout), your address and phone numbers and the addresses and phone numbers of everyone you know (Google Address Book), and every single web site you visit (GoogleDNS)? Really? Now exactly why would you want one single company to know all that?
Does *that* make you angry, yuu? Or are you just angry that someone is picking on poor helpless lil' ole Google.
Here's an article you should read: Google's Schmidt Roasted for Privacy Comments
And another one, by Old Man Grumpus himself: Eric Schmidt, Google and privacy
If I use Google to do my searching, Google knows what I'm searching. If I use Bing or Yahoo for searching, then Bing or Yahoo knows what I'm searching. Where the evil privacy concerns are or how one is more evil than the other escapes me.
Microsoft and Facebook knows the documents I use on Docs.com. Amazon, Paypal and my bank all know what I buy and when I buy it. Apple, Microsoft and Yahoo can all know my contact's addresses and phone numbers, as well as Verizon Wireless. Lastly, my ISP knows far more what websites because they actually serve the bits and can read any non-encrypted traffic... the worst DNS can know is what URLs I've been to, but not any content on the webpage itself.
So again, I fail to recognize why I should be angry? Privacy concerns about Google are no different than any other online service I use frequently, and are shared by every users of those networks. I'm sure you've left behind a digital trail of your information somewhere on the net, and even if you were very careful not to, why be more angry at Google than anyone else?
By the way, Schmit's right! Everyone deserves privacy, but don't go posting information about yourself that you wouldn't want the world to know without verifying who you're giving it to and to what end they'll store or share that information.
EDIT: Also, wanted to add that the reason Google is compliant with the Patriot Act and "Big Brother," as you put it, is because its the law. *EVERY* corporation that does business in the US that collects information is required to comply with the Patriot Act. Google isn't 'helping' any more than simply obeying the law. If you have a problem with Google, Microsoft, Apple, or any other corporation giving information to the government, take it up with your Congressman.
No, that's not how DNS works. Your machine does an initial lookup for the address record and then your machine caches it for some period of time. Once your machine is downloading it has already connected and wouldn't need another lookup. JoeMaller doesn't post the source of his research and DED links to faulty research.
I haven't had any problems with Google DNS. I'm rather fond of Open DNS myself.
You, sir, are absolutely correct. I find it amazing that I've seen this posted on a lot of "techie" websites, you would think that a WEBSITE would know how DNS works.
The only reason adding Google DNS to your list of servers would speed up web browsing is it helps your computer find all the links to all the Ads posted on the webpages, so your page finishes drawing faster.
In short, Your Mileage May Vary [YMMV] with regard to latency depending on the location of your DNS provider servers (ISP/OpenDNS/Google DNS) vis-a-vis the nearest Akamai server that streams your rental selection to you. Any of these DNS solutions could work out best for you or the absolute worst. As such, a little tweaking may or may not be required.
It's pretty obvious from the anecdotal evidence from the various blogs and support trails reporting the issue that the above is the likeliest explanation, and to be fair the AI article here states this clearly enough, if you make sure you are not swayed by the article's title.
What may worry many folks though is Google's past behaviour which has been nothing short of treacherous - one minute all cosy and partner-like with Apple, the next diving headlong with graceless haste into every market their erstwhile partner partakes in - smartphone handset, smartphone OS, App Store, Music Download Store, Book Store, TV streaming hardware, notebooks, and goodness knows whatever next. Couple that with the Street View / Open Wi-Fi passwords issue and some downright random utterances in response by their CEO ("You can always move house", "people want us to tell them what they should be doing" etc) and a smidgeon of paranoia is quite justified.
Linkbait or no, a lot of knowledgeable and suspicious folks are going to be watching issues like this like hawks for any dubious algorithmic activity. Once bitten, twice vigilant.
When will we get a decent search engine not based in the US and subject to its laws, with a policy of not storing any search data? If such a thing exists then I am ignorant of it.
Sounds like you are ignorant to a lot. If you think there is a search engine that doesn't store results you are living in a fantasy land. That information is priceless for many reasons. Who would you prefer to trust with that data? Russia, China, England? You can't even walk/drive down the street without being on multiple traffic cameras.
You're missing the point. Your configured DNS server has to talk to the DNS server that authoritatively resolves the hostname in question. In this specific case (AppleTV user configured for Google DNS), the AppleTV queries Google DNS for the iTunes server's IP, which is handled by Akamai; so Google DNS talks to Akamai DNS to get the authoritative record, and returns that to the AppleTV. Further, Google is permitted to cache that record from Akamai for a specific period of time (as determined by Akamai), and serve the cached record to other users. CDN's usually permit a TTL of 1 to 30 minutes. The kicker is that CDN's like Akamai often have streaming servers all over the world, and use custom DNS implementations that can do cool tricks like a geolocation against the IP address of the peering DNS server, in order to return an IP address to you that points your streaming request to a datacenter that's geographically near you. This is very important in the world of video streaming because it reduces roundtrip latency. The CDN assumes that your requesting DNS server is from your ISP and therefore likely regionally located near you, so these CDNs' tricks result in your being returned an IP address that attempts to ensure roundtrip latency is minimal. The problem that is noticed arises because Google's DNS servers are probably not geographically located near you, and with everyone around the world using them, as opposed to just regional users, a side effect is created whereby Google caches and serves you IP addresses that likely point you to an Akamai datacenter that is located far away (significantly increasing latency), and also likely overburdened because of other Google DNS users receiving the same cached DNS record. Other posters are right, though, this is not specifically a Google problem, it's also a problem with OpenDNS and other commonly used alternatives to your ISP's DNS server. In our high-bandwidth world where geolocation is key, when you give up your ISP's regional DNS for an external server that may be far away, you're going to see this issue.
Sorry, that still doesn't pass the smell test.
The CDN simply cannot assume that your DNS server is geographically located near you. If your ISP is a large provider like Comcast, Verizon, AT&T, BellSouth, etc., you're really in the same situation as if you use Google or OpenDNS.
Instead, CDN's will look up your location based on your IP address (and other magic). Just as a quick example, try looking up your location by googling "IP address location" (hint, try http://www.ipaddresslocation.org). If you don't know what you're public IP address is, look it up on http://www.whatismyip.com.
Some people are definitely experiencing AppleTV streaming issues (my dad is, while I am not. We both have AT&T Uverse, and the same data plan. Both use the same default wireless router config).
There, I fixed it for you.
From the Google Public DNS Privacy Policy:
Is any of the information collected stored with my Google account?
No.
Does Google share the information it collects from the Google Public DNS service with anyone else?
No.
Is information about my queries to Google Public DNS shared with other Google properties, such as Search, Gmail, ads networks, etc.?
No.
.....
Pretty simple policy. But please feel free to continue wearing the tin hat so that Google's orbital mind control laser doesn't affect you.
FTA: "CDNs like Akamai, which Apple works with to deliver iTunes downloads, use DNS lookup information to locate where users are, and then optimize content delivery via the nearest available server."
When you use a central DNS, Vs one near your home, Akmai ends up using a server to deliver to you that is less than ideal, sometimes by thousands of miles.
Further more... he wrote DNS service like Google and Open DNS and the other one... Not JUST Google... he's not singling them out or stearing away from others... he specifically wrote central DNS servers, as opposed to your local one. And he does say that the Google like ones can speed up your service-- just not if your heavy content is poorly routed. Re-read the article and drop your overly defensiveness to see what he ACTUALLY wrote.
I like OpenDNS because for most other sites it resolves everything quite fast nowadays compared to my developing-country ISPs.
But, in light of all this I'm going to stop using OpenDNS because of the amount of interaction I have with Apple cloud stuff. I think I was only using OpenDNS on my Airport connection on my MacBook and nothing else.
I considered using Google DNS but I already use Gmail, Google Search, Google Docs and once or twice I did feel things were not as optimised as OpenDNS.
We can argue DNS until we are blue in the face but at the end of the day it is pretty simple - try your connection with centralised DNS, try it with your ISP DNS. And decide for yourself.
I have Comcast, they update their servers regularly in my area, and I rarely have DNS issues.
wow, definitely experienced this problem with slowwww rentals and Google DNS. I've switched to my ISP DNS now, thanks for the article.
When I first got the new AppleTV I could not stream any rented stuff because it would always tell me it would take like 2 hours or more. I would do my renting on the Mac or iPad to Airplay it to the TV. I thought I give this idea a try. I was using OpenDNS. Change to my ISP DNS and the process to rent a movie and watch took like 30 Seconds. I watch the whole movie (The Town) and I did not experience any delays or buffing at all like I did before the change.