.local is mDNS/Rendezvous/Bonjour territory. In some cases it takes longer to resolve because your machine will multicast a query for the owner of the name. I

.local is mDNS/Rendezvous/Bonjour territory. In some cases it takes longer to resolve because your machine will multicast a query for the owner of the name. I use it extensively on my LAN with great success, but I have Macs and Linux machines with Avahi. People who don't shouldn't mess with it...