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My Chromecast Ultra would not start until I began answering 8.8.8.8

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Re: My Chromecast Ultra would not start until I began answering 8.8.8.8

#181

Post by pexaizix »

calibas wrote: post #170

This should bother people here more than it does. The last thing the Internet needs is even more dependence upon Google. They've made it quite clear through their actions that they're not supporters of a free and open Internet: https://theintercept.com/2018/09/14/google-china-prototype-l... If people don't push back against these kinds of things, Google will continue to abuse their power. There shouldn't be an army o…

It doesn't bother me because it's a Chromecast, an appliance I don't want or need. If I needed something similar, I could get it from other manufacturers.

Re: My Chromecast Ultra would not start until I began answering 8.8.8.8

#182

Post by scrollaway »

kilroy123 wrote: post #37
scrollaway wrote: post #14

I'm always shocked at how easy it is for people to fall into the "Google is evil!!1" trap on such trivial stuff (and funnily enough, much more serious privacy issues related to Google are ignored/downvoted). Hardcoded DNS servers are common. Extremely common in a bunch of IOT devices, given how broken some ISPs are. This is a non-story and the only reason it's being upvoted is because Google is doing it, and they als…

Personally, I think they kind of _are_. I now no longer point to or use Google's DNS because of this. Call me paranoid.

For what it's worth I don't think that's paranoid at all. You don't want to deal with Google, so you don't introduce them to your network, that's reasonable.

What is paranoid IMO is some commenters' (as well as seemingly Paul Vixie's) implication that Google does this trick with the Chromecast to better spy on people, which completely goes against Occam's Razor.

Re: My Chromecast Ultra would not start until I began answering 8.8.8.8

#184

Post by Bartweiss »

treis wrote: post #157
driverdan wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But why would you care about that? The reason doesn't matter. We should be in control of our own networks. Google shouldn't be deciding for us.

When did Google decide that you should buy a chromecast?

Does Google make the DNS requirement clear pre-purchase, or accept returns over this issue?

This isn't the same as coming into your home and forcing you to use Public DNS, sure, but I think people are justified in being annoyed if they buy something, then find an arbitrary and unannounced dependency in it.

(I can't find any mention of the DNS requirement by Google, just extensive threads elsewhere about working around the problems it's caused people. It looks like there is a 15-day return window for working devices. That's something, but if I stopped allowing Public DNS on day 16 and my device stopped working, I'd hardly feel like I had fair notice unless it was explicit somewhere in the instructions.)

Re: My Chromecast Ultra would not start until I began answering 8.8.8.8

#185

Post by C1sc0cat »

unethical_ban wrote: post #139

Jared Mauch's response was pretty rude. I don't mind defaults, but I do not like the inability to change. I wonder if it was clearly documented as a device requirement that 8.8.8.8 was needed. All prerequisites of function should be in the Quick Start Guide of the tool in question. Furthermore, users aren't always in control of the firewall/ACL on their network. If I go to Jack's Organic Coffee for a meeting and they…

You must have lead a sheltered life if you think this is "pretty rude". Its blunt and to the point I will give you but really

Re: My Chromecast Ultra would not start until I began answering 8.8.8.8

#186

Post by alias_neo »

metalliqaz wrote: post #169
alias_neo wrote: post #129

It's not new, and but limited to Chromecast Ultra, I detected this from several Android devices (phones) pre-Pie and configured my firewall to redirect those requests to my own DNS. Regardless of their reason, many of us don't want to use Google DNS and the just using their control over these devices to force people to 8.8.8.8/8.8.4.4. I haven't checked how Pie behaves yet but it provides an option in the UI to speci…

Google's business is built on web services, and we know for a fact that ISP occasionally try to inject bullshit into their customers browsing sessions via all kinds of dirty tricks. Their DNS is also designed to be faster than typical DNS. I wouldn't be surprised if Google sees this as a way to ensure the proper function of their devices.

I'm not arguing with that, but lots of us can and do run our own DNS for various reasons, it should respect that, or provide a power-user way to override the default DNS.

By all means offer fall-backs to Google DNS if it's not behaving correctly, for the reason you mention.

I've found it's also, quite poorly implemented, particular on CC Audios, I had an instance last year where my internet connection went down at my ISP, my DNS saw 10s of thousands of DNS queries per-device from each of my Chromecast Audio devices in the time I was out at work. It was almost 40k DNS queries in ~12 hours, per device.

Almost everything else on my network behaved normally, but the Google devices just went mental spamming the network with insane numbers of impossible requests, back-offs are a thing, they should use them.

Re: My Chromecast Ultra would not start until I began answering 8.8.8.8

#187

Post by scrollaway »

eeeeeeeeeeeee wrote: post #70
scrollaway wrote: post #14

I'm always shocked at how easy it is for people to fall into the "Google is evil!!1" trap on such trivial stuff (and funnily enough, much more serious privacy issues related to Google are ignored/downvoted). Hardcoded DNS servers are common. Extremely common in a bunch of IOT devices, given how broken some ISPs are. This is a non-story and the only reason it's being upvoted is because Google is doing it, and they als…

I would actually find it much more annoying from a troubleshooting perspective if every single IOT device I buy has a different hard-coded DNS server, provided by that manufacturer, instead of the one set by my local DHCP server. Because when the DNS set by your network fails, everything fails almost instantly and it's fairly easy to spot the problem from any device on your network. RE: configurability ... I thought…

Android is the exception IMO. Google's product are notoriously unconfigurable. For example, Chrome got a lot of flak over this especially in its early days.

Android also seems to be going the way of iOS on many fronts, because as it turns out, this philosophy makes things hard to maintain.

Re: My Chromecast Ultra would not start until I began answering 8.8.8.8

#188

Post by reaperducer »

calibas wrote: post #170

This should bother people here more than it does. The last thing the Internet needs is even more dependence upon Google. They've made it quite clear through their actions that they're not supporters of a free and open Internet: https://theintercept.com/2018/09/14/google-china-prototype-l... If people don't push back against these kinds of things, Google will continue to abuse their power. There shouldn't be an army o…

The last thing the Internet needs is even more dependence upon Google

Watching Big G's actions over the last few years, I've sometimes wondered if it's laying the groundwork to fork the internet.

People talk about China and Russia's actions balkanizing the internet. But I have a sense that Google could do it, as well, and bring us back to the days when people didn't know the difference between the real internet and America Online.

Re: My Chromecast Ultra would not start until I began answering 8.8.8.8

#189

Post by unethical_ban »

eertami wrote: post #164
unethical_ban wrote: post #139

Jared Mauch's response was pretty rude. I don't mind defaults, but I do not like the inability to change. I wonder if it was clearly documented as a device requirement that 8.8.8.8 was needed. All prerequisites of function should be in the Quick Start Guide of the tool in question. Furthermore, users aren't always in control of the firewall/ACL on their network. If I go to Jack's Organic Coffee for a meeting and they…

Maybe I'm missing the forest for the trees but... what possible reason would you have for taking a Chromecast to a coffee shop?

It was a stretch. I've taken Roku to a local bar to stream live events. The generic "take my device to a network I do not manage" isn't outrageous though.

Re: My Chromecast Ultra would not start until I began answering 8.8.8.8

#190

Post by creeble »

vetinari wrote: post #31
isostatic wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google DNS came about because of a very real problem of shitty ISPs giving shitty DNS servers that gave fake results (especially in NXDomain cases) I can see why you would want to use a known-good dns provider in your product, however at the very least there should be an ability to turn off such behaviour.

It is not shitty ISPs giving fake results. It is me. My resolver does that and it is for a reason. Disrespecting what the local network tells you to use just leads to arms race.

This is easy to say until you've found yourself supporting 10s of thousands of devices across the world and are the guy support calls when people complain about (what turns out to be) broken DNS servers at hundreds of ISPs.

People who buy little internet devices usually don't respond well to "it's your ISP" when their day-to-day web browsing experience is just fine to them.

If your resolver does that, you're going to be the 0.01% that complains, rather than the 2-5% that is crushing customer support.

Not saying that makes it "right", just saying it fixes it.

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