OpenDNS Home - safe browsing for the kids (and you)

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troy
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OpenDNS Home - safe browsing for the kids (and you)

Post by troy »

Well, my daughter, Rachel, will be 7 in May. "They grow up so fast", as they say, and it hit me this week that my little, baby girl is an Internet user. What?! :shock: I watched her sit down at my computer, open a browser, and Google search for music videos. The Internet is a DARK, SCARY PLACE that wants to harm my daughter! :evil: The bad stuff will find her regardless of whether she is looking for it or not.

So I wonder what you parents do to keep your little kids from opening bad stuff on the Internet?

On Sunday, I setup OpenDNS Home (free), and so far it's awesome. It's a dead-simple and effective solution. All you do is log into your home router and configure it to serve these 2 Name Servers instead of the defaults you get from your Internet provider:

208.67.222.222
208.67.220.220

By default you'll have no blocking except known malware sites. When you sign up at http://www.opendns.com/home-solutions/p ... -controls/, you get a Dashboard that lets you configure the level of filtering. I chose "Medium" which blocks all adult content and illegal activity related sites. You can also block or allow specific domains as needed.

When a URL is blocked, you get a nice page in your browser letting you know it was blocked. Your users (family) can submit a form on that page will go to you and request that the URL be allowed. You can even customize that page your home users see when a page is blocked.

If your public IP is dynamic (most home Internet services give dynamic IPs that can change over time), they have a program you can download and run on one of your computers that will automatically update your account with your current public IP. (Don't run this on a laptop that you frequently take outside your home or you may update your OpenDNS public IP with the public IP from the coffee house network, etc.)

You can ignore everything I said and just go to http://www.opendns.com/home-solutions/p ... -controls/, then click OpenDNS Home and follow the instructions. They walk you through it.

A nice side benefit is that the OpenDNS name servers are faster than the slow, crappy Surewest name servers. This means my browsing experience is faster now. :)
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Re: OpenDNS Home - safe browsing for the kids (and you)

Post by MrHix »

I think the only down side is that now Rachel can put the block on you!

Good idea.

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Re: OpenDNS Home - safe browsing for the kids (and you)

Post by jasoomian »

I use OpenDNS here at work as a second form of content filtering along with other Network Appliances and I quite like it, it's quick and easy to set up and does a pretty good job of keeping the evil at bay. Or, in my case, keeping people from shopping on eBay and reading the FaceBooks all day.
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Re: OpenDNS Home - safe browsing for the kids (and you)

Post by Rusty Jug »

Ok guys my daughter has a iPad and I just bought a HP Google chrome laptop I need help my wife was talking about this last night!!!
Ok somebody needs to walk me through this I have BBQ coupons !
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Re: OpenDNS Home - safe browsing for the kids (and you)

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Call me right now, RJ. 913.669.0958
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Re: OpenDNS Home - safe browsing for the kids (and you)

Post by Rusty Jug »

I just saw this, can't call now! Lol!
My phone went dead last night when I was surfing the page
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Re: OpenDNS Home - safe browsing for the kids (and you)

Post by Rusty Jug »

Troy I plan to do this sometime this week, so when is your most free time?
:) yes you have free BBQ for this!
Last edited by Rusty Jug on 06 Jan 2014 13:16, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: OpenDNS Home - safe browsing for the kids (and you)

Post by troy »

Rusty Jug wrote:Troy I plan to do this sometime this week, so when is you most free time?
:) yes you have free BBQ for this!
Just call when convenient for you, and I'll do my best to make that time work. We'll need 5 to 20 minutes depending on thickness of your skull.
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