Google Public DNS (Domain Name System), the well-known IP address 8.8.8.8, turned eight years, eight months, eight days and eight hours old on Sunday, 12th August 2018, at 00:30 UTC.
The DNS protocol is used to convert the user-friendly domain names into IP addresses which can be easily understood by computers. The aim of using domain name systems like 8.8.8.8 is to make the internet faster for users, safeguard the privacy, and access internet sites more reliably and securely.
Currently, over 10% of the internet users rely on 8.8.8.8, and it serves more than a trillion queries every day. A big part of the protocol comes from free public internet, such as Google Station services offered by Indian railway stations, parks in San Francisco, LinkNYC kiosk hotspots etc.
On the occasion of numerological anniversary, the search engine giant announced a number of upcoming improvements to the protocol.
Google said that accelerating the DNS responses is just one part of making the web faster, but getting the web content from servers closer to the users can have the bigger impact. The content delivery networks (CDNs) use DNS for directing users to nearest servers for distribution of content like video streaming to the users. When the ISP resolver is far away from the user, it can impact loading time.
The search engine giant will continue to improve the EDNS Client Subnet (ECS) extension, such as adding automatic detection of name server ECS support. the support for ECS is now widespread among CDNs.
On the privacy front, Google is strengthening the way it collects and uses information. Google is working in the IETF and with other DNS operators on the Internet Draft for DNS Queries over HTTPS specification.
Additionally, the ability of Google Public DNS to protect the integrity of DNS responses is also being improved. It will be able to block DNS denial of service attacks by limiting the rate of queries to name servers and reflection that flood network connections.
Also read: Internet domain names will soon be available in Indian regional scripts
“In short, we continue to improve Google Public DNS both behind the scenes and in ways visible to users, adding features that users want from their DNS service,” wrote Google in a blog post.
