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In the past I was always told by colleagues 4.2.2.2 appears to work faster and have to combine that with Google's public DNS*. Using 8.8.8.8 as primary and 4.2.2.2 as secondary. However, Google only provides 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4, so who provides 4.2.2.2? And if true, why is 4.2.2.2 faster?
*Note: These IP addresses are used to dig domains and to determine if local DNS changes has propagated over all over the internet.
Rudolph
Posted 2014-01-29T18:15:06.057
Reputation: 2 552
78
4.2.2.2 is one of six (4.2.2.1 through 4.2.2.6) DNS servers run by Level 3 Communications, a Tier 1 ISP. These are supposed to be used by Level 3 customers only, although they have gone into general use over the years. Supposedly, they are officially discouraging people from using these DNS servers, as they are under no obligation to provide this service and can theoretically discontinue them at any time (whereas Google provides their DNS servers expressly for public use).
More information here.
Bigbio2002
Posted 2014-01-29T18:15:06.057
Reputation: 3 804
@KristofferSall-Storgaard, link doesn't work. – Cœur – 2016-07-28T03:17:14.093
@Cœur link through wayback machine: https://web.archive.org/web/20150110002509/http://james.bertelson.me/blog/2014/01/level-3-are-now-hijacking-failed-dns-requests-for-ad-revenue-on-4-2-2-x
– Kristoffer Sall-Storgaard – 2016-07-28T08:44:51.24324.2.2.2 is also useful for network debugging, namely an easy to remember IP that responds to pings. For years, if there was a network connection issue, the first step would be to ping the router, then to ping 4.2.2.2, to see if packets got on the net (no DNS needed). 8.8.8.8 is a bit easier to remember now though :) – Rich Homolka – 2014-01-29T18:35:16.663
2But yet again, Google isn't under any obligation. – oldmud0 – 2014-01-30T01:42:18.237
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Link to level 3 story, without reddit: http://james.bertelson.me/blog/2014/01/level-3-are-now-hijacking-failed-dns-requests-for-ad-revenue-on-4-2-2-x/
– Kristoffer Sall-Storgaard – 2014-01-30T07:42:21.960
Microsoft uses internetbeacon.msedge.net => 13.107.4.52 for its Powershell module
Test-NetConnection. – CMCDragonkai – 2017-02-02T15:21:42.01031
nslookup 4.2.2.2= "b.resolvers.level3.net" – Ƭᴇcʜιᴇ007 – 2014-01-29T18:32:38.4771Makes me wonder why 1.1.1.1 and 2.2.2.2 etc aren't used. – Roger Far – 2014-01-29T23:52:38.293
151.1.1.1 is unofficially reserved (allocated to "Debogon-prefix") — it receives a ton of bogus traffic from misconfigured devices, so it's unusable in practice. – duskwuff -inactive- – 2014-01-30T00:17:30.217