Switching to Google Public DNS (on an Apple Mac OS X Lion)

If you are interested in learning why you should be using a DNS other than that provided by your Service Provider then you might like to see Google Article on the subject;

http://code.google.com/speed/public-dns/docs/intro.html

A couple of things it doesn't mention but are also definite benefits (for me anyway) are;

• Automatically opting out of any Service Provider "search" services (such as those offered by Virgin Media) when you miss-type a URL
• Avoiding any blocks your Service Provider might put on you reaching certain sites by substituting DNS entries. Of course the down side of using a service like Google is that suddenly by using a US-based service you are subject to US law and filtering

Here are the instructions in order to set-up your Mac to use Google DNS.

Go to the top-right of the screen and right-click the Network (Wireless?) network icon;

Apple Network Options

Select "Open Network Preferences";

Network Preferences

Click on the "Advanced" button at the bottom right;

Advanced Network Options

Click on the "DNS" tab (centre-middle at the top);

DNS  Servers

As you can see in the screen shot the Google IP addresses for DNS are 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4 (which are certainly a lot easier to remember than IP addresses generally!).

You need to remove any entries that are already in this box and replace them with the two IP addresses above.