Google DNS

Google launched a DNS resolving service called Google Public DNS that uses Google's infrastructure to improve page loading time. A DNS resolver converts domain names into IP addresses and this process might slow down browsing.

"As the web continues to grow, greater load is placed on existing DNS infrastructure. Since Google's search engine already crawls the web on a daily basis and in the process resolves and caches DNS information, we wanted to leverage our technology to experiment with new ways of addressing some of the existing DNS challenges around performance and security."

You can replace your ISP's DNS service with Google Public DNS by changing the settings of the network connection and using the following IP addresses:

* 8.8.8.8
* 8.8.4.4

An important problem is that DNS resolvers can track all the web pages sites you visit and build a profile of your interests. Google's privacy page says that the full IP addresses are deleted within 48 hours and Google does not permanently store personally identifiable information. "We built Google Public DNS to make the web faster and to retain as little information about usage as we could, while still being able to detect and fix problems."

OpenDNS, a popular third-party DNS resolving service, offers more feature than Google Public DNS: web content filtering, stats, typo correction, shortcuts, but they're available if you create an account and enter personal information like your name and address. When you type an invalid URL, OpenDNS redirects you to its own search engine to show suggestions and ads. Other free DNS resolution services: Comodo Secure DNS, OpenNIC, DNS Advantage.

You can test all the services and decide which one works best for you by using GRC's Domain Name Speed Benchmark. Don't forget to add Google's memorable IPs: 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4.

{ via Google Code Blog }

Google Translated Search, Now More Powerful

Google Translated Search was launched as a Google Translate feature that helped you search in other languages. Google automated several steps that made it difficult to find information written in a language you don't know: Google translated the query, used it to obtain the search result and then translated the results in your language.

The feature is now available in the search toolbelt and it's much smarter: Google automatically detects the most appropriate languages for your query. Click on "show options", select "translated search" and Google shows a box that lists some languages, the translations of your query and the top search results for those translated queries.

For example, if you search for [oslo museums], Google shows a list of web pages written in Norwegian. When you search for [romantic art], Google suggests more than one language: Spanish, French, Italian and German.

"If you're traveling and want to find hotels, restaurants, activities or reviews written from a local perspective, or if you're just curious to find what's being written about a company, product or topic in another language, give Translated search in the Search Options panel a try," suggests Google.

YouTube Feather

Feather is a new feature from YouTube Labs. The goal is "to serve YouTube video watch pages with the lowest latency possible. It achieves this by severely limiting the features available to the viewer and making use of advanced web techniques for reducing the total amount of bytes downloaded by the browser."

Chrome's dev tools show that the improvements are noticeable: the resources downloaded when you watch a video only have 52 KB, instead of 391 KB.

There are many missing features in the "feather" version: search suggestions, posting comments, viewing all the comments, rating videos, customizing the embedded player. Another issue is that the lite version is not available for all videos.

{ Thanks, Michael. }

Google's Homepage Goes Back to Basics

Google has been testing a new version of its homepage that hides the navigational elements until you use the mouse. Most people visit Google's homepage to search the Web, so the links to other Google services are distracting. After testing 10 variants of the new homepage, including an interface that removed the buttons, Google decided to keep the search buttons and to use a subtle fade-in effect before displaying the links.

"Internally, a large number of Google employees have been using the new homepage. They have come to really like it — it represents our focus on great search yet helps searchers efficiently access all of Google's products. Like the new supersized search box we launched several months ago, this change is one that is very noticeable at first, and then quickly becomes second nature," explains Google's blog.

I rarely go to Google's homepage to search the Web, since browsers include a search box and I don't have to load a new web page to enter a query. The latest UI changes will make me visit Google's homepage more often: the search box is bigger, the search results are loaded without opening a new page using Ajax and the new clutter-free interface helps you concentrate.

Change Gmail's Default Text Style

If you like to use rich formatting when you compose Gmail's messages, but the default text style is too boring, you can change it. Go to Gmail Labs, enable "Default Text Styling" and change the style from the settings page. You can select a different font face (including Comic Sans), change the color, size and style.

"If you live and breathe code, now you can set your default text style to a monospace font. If your life is purple, your email can be, too. But remember: whatever you see is what your recipients will see, so be nice to them and try not to clog the intertubes with ginormous bold italicized red script," suggests Google.

The new text styling is only used when you type some text, so the signature will use Gmail's original settings.

Optimized Google Analytics Code

A lot of web sites use Google Analytics to analyze traffic data, so the performance of Google's tracking code is very important. Google recommends to place the code just before closing the <body> tag to ensure "that the tracking code is executed as the last element of the DOM". Otherwise, the script would block the other elements from loading and visitors would have until the script is executed to see the rest of the page. Unfortunately, you can't place the script at the bottom of the page if you some advanced features like tracking events.

To improve the script's performance, Google decided to load it asynchronously. "Unlike a traditional installation, asynchronous tracking optimizes how browsers load ga.js so its impact on user experience is minimized. It also allows you to put your Analytics snippet higher in the page without delaying subsequent content from rendering."

Here's the new code for basic tracking, which uses some ideas from Steve Souders:

<script type="text/javascript">

  var _gaq = _gaq || [];
  _gaq.push(['_setAccount', 'UA-XXXXX-X']);
  _gaq.push(['_trackPageview']);

  (function() {
    var ga = document.createElement('script');
    ga.src = ('https:' == document.location.protocol ? 
'https://ssl' : 'http://www') + '.google-analytics.com/ga.js';
    ga.setAttribute('async', 'true');
    document.documentElement.firstChild.appendChild(ga);
  })();

</script>

Google Analytics Blog says that the new snippet is a beta feature and changing the code is optional.

The new tracking snippet offers the following benefits:

* Faster tracking code load times for your web pages due to improved browser execution
* Enhanced data collection and accuracy
* Elimination of tracking errors from dependencies when the JavaScript hasn't fully loaded

The Fastest Rising Google Queries in 2009

Google and other search engines publish every year a list of the most popular searches, but it's not always clear how it's compiled. This year, Google explained the methodology:

"To compile the 2009 Year-End Zeitgeist, we studied the aggregation of billions of queries people typed into Google search this year. We use data from multiple sources, including Insights for Search, Google Trends and internal data tools. We also filter out spam and repeat queries to build out lists that best reflect the spirit of the times. In some cases, we list the fastest rising queries, which means we found the most popular searches conducted in 2009 and then ranked them based on how much their popularity increased compared to 2008."

The fastest rising query was [Michael Jackson], followed by four social networks: [Facebook], [Tuenti], [Twitter], [Sanalika], a movie: [New Moon], a singer: [Lady Gaga], Microsoft Windows 7, a news site from Vietnam: [dantri.com.vn] and a free SMS service from Brazil: [torpedo gratis].

The only rising query from 2008 included in Google's 2009 list is [tuenti], a Spanish social network. If you take a look at the Google Trends chart for [tuenti], you'll notice that the site's popularity didn't grow in 2009.



Cem Sertoglu says that "Sanalika is a virtual world similar to IMVU or Popmundo. It has not made much of an impact in the Turkish internet scene so far, so I had to double check when I saw its name on the Google list."

Google Insights for Search provides another list of the fastest growing queries in 2009: twitter (+1,550%), michael jackson (+850%), facebook login (+750%), facebook.com (+300%), facebook (+250%), tuenti (+180%), youtube.com (+150%), face (+100%), yahoo mail (+80%), traductor (+50%).

Google Zeitgeist continues to be an enigma.