Google Chrome's (and Chromium's) about:flags page is becoming quite the playground for intrepid feature testers. In a recent Chromium snapshot build, another handy new feature has appeared: user-specified DNS servers.

Being able to specify custom servers right in the browser might not be a big deal on other operating systems -- where you can already do that in your network settings. On Chrome OS, however, it could provide an easy way for parents to lock their child's netbook in to the OpenDNS FamilyShield to block inappropriate content (for example).

I'm sure there are other applications for this as well -- testing, for example. Want to run GoogleDNS in Canary against your ISP's servers in Chromium to see how they perform side-by-side? Go for it!

...Or maybe your favorite site won't load, or an outdated copy of a page you're working on keeps loading when you refresh (I'm looking at you, MTS). If it's your DNS servers at fault, you could quickly pop a new server into Chrome, reload, and off you go.

Sure, you could achieve the same result using a proxy server, but why bother if the functionality is built right into your browser?