Switching to Google DNS Service

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Level 1

21 points

Switching to Google DNS Service

Just a quick question. I'm changing to Google's public DNS service and followed their instructions to change the DNS settings through system preferences > network > wireless.

I went to my Airport Utility and it still shows the default DNS settings. So I changed it there too. The problem is, when I clicked apply, my system could no longer find my Airport Extreme, so I had to reset it.

So do I need to leave the Airport DNS setting as is--and the changes I made through system preferences are fine--or do I need to change it to Google's in Airport as well? If the latter, how do I do it without losing my connection to the router?

Macbook Pro 15", 2.33 GHz, 2 GB RAM, 120 GB HD, ATI Radeon x1600, 6x SuperDrive, Mac OS X (10.6.2), iPhone 3G S, 23" Cinema Display, Photoshop CS3, iWork 08, Final Cut Studio 3

Posted on Feb 20, 2010 8:37 AM

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Answer 1

Tesserax

Level 10

157,872 points

Feb 20, 2010 11:55 AM in response to bpeacock22

Your AirPort Extreme Base Station (AEBSn) is, most likely, configured as a DHCP client (ref: Configure IPv4 = Using DHCP). As such it would get the DNS IP Address settings from your ISP. You will note, when configured as a DHCP client, the AEBSn will not allow you to override these settings ... as they will be dynamically updated periodically by your ISP. You can only "permanently" change them by switching to Configure IPv4 = Manually. However, this is only done typically when assigned static IPs.

So, you will pretty much have to enter the Google DNS IP Address values on each network client to override your ISP's DNS servers.

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Answer 2

Tesserax

Level 10

157,872 points

Feb 20, 2010 3:36 PM in response to bpeacock22

My earlier response did not sit right with me, so I went back and confirmed that even as a DHCP Client the AEBSn DOES allow you to change the DNS Server(s) settings ... so you CAN override the ISP's DNS values with those from Google. Doing so, will provide these IP addresses to each of the network's DHCP clients ... and you would NOT have to set them manually for each client. Sorry about any confusion I may have caused.

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Answer 3

dbs

Level 2

206 points

Feb 21, 2010 3:42 AM in response to bpeacock22

Just a comment:

I found Google's DNS service to be significantly slower than my Time Warner DNS. Others have also reported that Google's DNS censors certain searches. YMMV.

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Answer 4

bpeacock22 Author

Level 1

21 points

Feb 21, 2010 1:36 PM in response to dbs

My page loading time is waaaaay faster since I tried this out. I know Google probably saves everything I'm doing for their databases, but the know everything about me already anyway. Ha ha...

Google = Skynet.

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