ping vs gethostbyname to check internet connection

[hbcpp]

I need to a way to check if pc is connected to the internet.
The most common option is to use ping, pinging google.com, but that is not a very good option so when searching for an alternative I came across gethostbyname.

using ping:

        if (system("ping -c1 www.google.com"))
        {
            qDebug() <<"There is no internet connection  \n";

        }
        else
            qDebug() << "-> connection established!\n";

using gethostbyname:

    char *hostname;
    struct hostent *hostinfo;

    hostname = "google.com";

    hostinfo = gethostbyname (hostname);

    if (hostinfo == NULL)
    {
        cout <<"There is no internet connection  \n";
    }
    else
       cout << "-> connection established!\n";

pinging google.com is not good because then you might have to verify that you are not a bot when using aftewards. I want to know if that will happen when using gethostbyname as well?
And also according to this answer https://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/programming-9/c-checking-internet-connection-248003/, gethostbyname might not be reliable:

It will grab that info from DNS cache if available, so it might not be the best test. You're better off finding a site that doesn't drop ICMP packets and do your own "ping" to it.

They were both pretty fast in my tests.

[salem c]

gethostbyname tells you nothing about whether a particular machine is up or down.
You're querying a DNS server, not the machine itself.

[hbcpp]

You're querying google DNS server won't it tell me if there is internet connecttion?

[salem c]

It'll tell you that your internet is alive, because you queried your DNS server.
With the disclaimer you added to the first post.

Seems I mis-read your post, I thought you wanted to make sure you could connect to a remote, not just establish local connectivity.

> pinging google.com is not good because then you might have to verify that you are not a bot when using aftewards.
This made no sense.
ping doesn't trigger captchas.


> The most common option is to use ping, pinging google.com, but that is not a very good option
Yeah, using system() to do anything is a bad idea.
- you've no control over what actual program gets run.
- the return result is useless if mickeysoft is your OS vendor.