How to set up whole-house parental controls with opendns

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April 2020

Parents: The Porn-Free Family Plan + OpenDNS Family Shield. Please read. 6 tips.

Parents, okay, let’s talk pornography and your kids. Not a fun subject I realize. But an important one. Your kids will be exposed to pornography at some point in their young lives. Are you up for the challenge of delaying that exposure? Me too. Please keep reading.

Pornography will seek your kids out, even if they never go looking for it. Pop-ups, ads, and redirected URLs will expose them to pornography at some point. Smart phones, iPads, laptops and now even the challenge of stay-at-home orders with more time spent on the internet increase the odds of our kids being exposed to pornography. Is there anything we can do about it? Fortunately, yes. But it will require a bit of work on your part. I trust you are up for this important work? Below are 5 tips to help you out.

1. If you do nothing else, set up OpenDNS Family Shield on your family’s home internet router right now. It is free and it is pre-configured to block the majority of pornography websites on the internet. I’ve embedded 2 YouTube videos in this post in point #6 below that will walk you through this process. Configuring your router is the only slightly complex task and you might need to buy a new router that will allow you to update your DNS settings. Watch the videos below and then go to this website link to get started:

2. I highly encourage you to watch the first 39 minutes of this video embedded below which details an incredibly helpful “The Porn-Free Family Plan.” It is a plan developed by Tim Challies. He gave this talk at a church in Colorado in February of 2020. Tim does such a great job of first explaining the dangers of internet pornography for our kids. Then he gives parents super practical tips on how you can protect your family. It was this video that taught me about OpenDNS, Covenant Eyes and the Circle Parental Controls device – points #3 and #4 below. In addition to watching this video below, I highly encourage you to read Tim’s blog post about The Porn-Free Family Plan at this link:

3. In addition to OpenDNS, in the video above Tim refers to Covenant Eyes as a helpful website that you can learn more about at this link:

4. Tim also references the Circle Parental Controls device in the video above, which you can learn more about at this link:

6. Below are two helpful videos about how to set up OpenDNS Family Shield on your home internet router:

(Note that the home internet router I leased from my internet service provider would not allow me to change DNS settings, so I could not utilize OpenDNS Family Shield. I ended up purchasing this router which allows for DNS setting changes: )

Parents, what other tips would you share to protect your kids online? Please share in the comments below, thanks!

How to set up whole-house parental controls with opendns

It’s becoming increasingly common for children to have their own laptops, tablets or smartphones, but just because your child owns one or more Internet-enabled devices, doesn’t mean you’re comfortable with them seeing everything that the Internet has to offer.

Apple include a range of parental controls in each release of macOS, and Sierra is no exception. However, on the Internet inappropriate content is only ever a click away, so many parents naturally want some extra assurance that their children can’t access any disturbing, inappropriate or explicit content.
In this article, I’ll be showing you how to block adult content at the click of a button, using OpenDNS Family Shield.

What is DNS blocking?

OpenDNS is a DNS server that translates user-friendly URLs into the the IP addresses that your Mac uses to actually connect to different websites.

Every Internet provider supplies their own DNS that your Mac and other Internet-enabled devices use by default, but you can manually change your DNS server at any time. There are many reasons why you might switch to a new DNS server, but the most popular are boosting the speed of your connection, and gaining access to additional features, such as Family Shield’s parental controls.

The benefit of using a DNS blocking service, is that it isn’t limited to a single device. By changing the DNS server for your home router, you can prevent any device from accessing inappropriate content on your home network. If you do change your the settings for your router, then regardless of whether your child is surfing the web on the family laptop, their own personal iPad, or using their Android smartphone, you can be confident that content-blocking will be in effect.

In this article, I’ll show you how to change the DNS settings for an individual Mac, before looking at how to change the DNS server for your home router.

Before we begin, just be aware that although OpenDNS Family Shield does block all major porn sites, your child may still be exposed to adult content on websites that aren’t categorised as adult sites, such as Twitter, Reddit or Facebook. For the best results, you should use OpenDNS in conjunction with other parental controls.

Switch a single Mac to OpenDNS

To setup content blocking on a specific Mac:

Open your Mac’s ‘System preferences…’ and select ‘Network.’
In the left-hand menu, select the interface that you use to connect to the web, such as ‘Wi-Fi’ or ‘Ethernet.’
Click the ‘Advanced…’ button.
Select the ‘DNS’ tab.
Click the ‘+’ button directly beneath the ‘DNS Servers’ list.

How to set up whole-house parental controls with opendns

Enter either of the following DNS server addresses:

Click ‘OK.’
Back in the main ‘Network’ window, click ‘Apply.’

To make sure your Mac is using these new DNS settings, it’s recommended that you flush the DNS cache. You flush the cache by opening a Terminal window (‘Applications > Utilities > Terminal’) and then running a Terminal command. The exact command will vary depending on your version of macOS, so work your way through the following commands until you find one that works for you:

sudo killall -u _mdnsresponder mDNSResponder
sudo killall -HUP mDNSResponder
sudo dscacheutil -flushcache; sudo killall -HUP mDNSResponder.

To check that OpenDNS Family Shield is setup correctly, head over to their Testing page and the InternetBadGuys.com demo page. Both of these sites should now be blocked.

How to set up whole-house parental controls with opendns

Switch your router to the OpenDNS servers

It’s becoming increasingly common for children to have access to multiple Internet-enabled devices, so even if you setup their laptop to use OpenDNS, your children may still encounter inappropriate content on other devices.

You can prevent your children from viewing inappropriate content on any device that’s connected to your home network, by switching your router to use the OpenDNS server. Although this approach does offer increased protection, note that it won’t prevent your child from accessing inappropriate content on other networks, most notably the mobile data on their smartphones.

In this section, I’ll be outlining the general steps you’ll need to take, in order to change your router’s settings. Some details may vary depending on your particular router, so if you encounter any difficulties, then consult your router’s user manual for more information.

Find your router’s IP address by navigating to ‘System preferences > Network > Advanced.’
Select the ‘TCP/IP’ tab; you’ll find your router’s address next to ‘Router.’
Enter this address into your web browser, which should launch the settings for your particular router.
Next, you’ll need to hunt down an area where you can enter some new DNS settings. This location varies between routers, so if you can’t find a tab or menu item that’s explicitly labelled ‘DNS,’ then look for an ‘Advanced’ or ‘My Network Settings’ section.
Once you’ve found this section, look for one or more fields where you can enter two sets of numbers, and copy/paste the following into these fields:

Click ‘Save’ or ‘Apply.’
To make sure your DNS configuration settings take immediate effect, flush your cache using one of the following Terminal commands:

sudo killall -u _mdnsresponder mDNSResponder
sudo killall -HUP mDNSResponder
sudo dscacheutil -flushcache; sudo killall -HUP mDNSResponder.

Try to access the OpenDNS Family Shield’s Testing page and the InternetBadGuys.com demo page across several devices that are connected to your home network; both of websites should now be blocked across all your devices.

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Rising user expectations require advanced features in the router to stay competitive

Today’s home network users are security and privacy-conscious. They expect great Wi-Fi with high-quality broadband connectivity. Users also want to know their experience is protected and under their control. This is especially true of families with young adults and children in the household. Parents want to regulate screen time and ensure that their children will have a safe and secure experience when they are online by filtering inappropriate or dangerous content.

For this reason, “parental controls” have become an essential feature for Wi-Fi routers to implement. Manufacturers are using it as an advanced feature to differentiate their products, and service providers are offering it as a value- add to their overall packages. New startups are entering the market, offering products targeted explicitly towards families concerned with content, privacy, and security.

What are parental controls?

The term “parental controls” refers to the use cases themselves. Parents want to make sure their children are accessing safe content, and they also want to set limitations. As such, there are two main parental control features that Wi- Fi routers implement: content filtering and access restrictions. How do they work, and which technologies support them?

Content filtering

Content filtering blocks users from accessing specific web resources on the Internet, such as age-inappropriate content or dangerous resources that contain malware. Filtering makes use of lists curated by different filtering providers. These lists serve as differentiators for the manufacturer or provider that builds them, though some free and open-source solutions exist.

There are several different ways to implement content filtering.

URL filtering relies on a list of specific URLs to determine access. White- listing allows only specific URLs to be accessed, while black-listing denies access to the listed URLs.

Application filtering works very similarly to a firewall. In this case, filtering occurs on port ranges, protocol types, or other known application types.

IP filtering may filter specific ranges of IP addresses, or rely on GeoIP information to block addresses in a given region that might have a below- average reputation.

DNS based filtering is similar to URL filtering, but relies on domain classification of malicious sites and uses DNS to redirect users to a different resource at the time of the DNS lookup. For example, when the DNS filter sees a request for mybadsite.net, it instead resolves the address to a known, safe IP address (either a cloud service or local on the Wi-Fi router) where the resource delivered may be a web-portal or page that explains why the content was blocked.

Example: DNS filtering in action

Here’s an example of DNS filtering in action using OpenDNS.

How to set up whole-house parental controls with opendns

In the packet capture, you’ll see that a DNS request was made using our default DNS server (in this case, the gateway at 192.168.1.1) to internetbadguys.com, a test domain for OpenDNS representing a malicious site. It responds with the authoritative answer.

When we change our DNS server to one of the OpenDNS’s servers (208.67.222.222), it changes the IP address given in the response to 146.112.61.108. In a device implementing DNS filtering or using a service like OpenDNS, it could provide some HTML content stating that the site was blocked.

How to set up whole-house parental controls with opendns

OpenDNS Phishing Warning

Internet access restrictions

Internet access restrictions limit when a user can access the Internet through the Wi-Fi router. They act like an on/off switch that denies the user access to the WAN based on particular criteria.

Usually, these criteria are time-based. Parents want to limit access to the Internet according to a set schedule or implement “screen time” limits that cause access to time out after it has reached a set amount of time.

The Wi-Fi router uses MAC address filtering to apply the limits to a specific device. Many solutions have a feature in the user interface that lists the hosts that the router has identified. Users can select which hosts to limit, and the router allows or denies access based on the device’s MAC address. For example, a parent could cap or restrict access to the Internet from a gaming console after a few hours, while allowing a student’s laptop to access the Internet for remote learning. Or, a parent could disable access for all of the child’s devices after 9:00 pm, without restricting access to other household devices. Very often, the application lets users give friendly names to each device or group them together to make it easy to apply policy.

Combining filtering with access restrictions

Many devices also provide the ability to craft more advanced policy that combines these features. Parents may want to limit some applications according to a schedule, but not all Internet traffic. For example, they could allow access only to a specific educational application during homework time, opening up general access later. Or, they could combine both schedule and time limit restrictions to give children a window in which they can spend their screen- time.

Security applications help differentiate the Wi-Fi router market

Manufacturers and providers are adding more applications to the router to give end-users a better home networking experience. Parental controls are a valuable part of a full-featured Wi-Fi router product focused on privacy and security. They give parents the flexibility they need to manage that experience for their entire family, helping them use it more safely and responsibly.

These features can be complex to design and implement, however. Companies looking to differentiate based on applications like parental controls should rigorously test these features during the development process to ensure robust and interoperable products.

CDRouter Security contains an ever-growing list of fully-automated test cases for features like these. Find out how repeatable, consistent testing can help you build better products and be first-to-market with advanced Wi-Fi routers.

How to set up whole-house parental controls with opendns

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Keeping your kids safe on the internet isn’t easy and standard parental control filters can be cumbersome to manage. Your Wi-Fi router may come with some rudimentary built-in blocking capabilities, but it likely won’t equip a lot of fine-grained control. On the other hand, software solutions may only be compatible with certain devices. That’s why a few brands have released new devices that apply complex rules network-wide, allowing you to block sites, set screen time limits and monitor activity on any device you have at home.

Of course, your first line of defense should be a candid series of conversations with your kids about privacy, security, malware and the other unsavory things one can find on the web. In addition, no parental control solutions are foolproof, and any kid with some tech savviness — or the willingness to learn — can probably find ways to circumvent them. I recommend using a few layers of controls, if you can.

Shopping Best Wi-Fi 6 wireless routers to shop in 2020

Best tech for parental control

The devices below will give you the most options but you can also use them in conjunction with the blocking mechanisms of your router and a DNS filtering service like OpenDNS, making for a multi-layer solution that’s more work to get around. That, coupled with good parenting, can go a long way.

Parental control with whole-network versatility: Circle

1. Circle Home Plus

Circle has become one of the biggest names in online parental controls: Their software provides more options than you can shake a stick at in an easy-to-navigate interface. Not only can you block certain sites, but you can block the usage of certain apps and even categories of sites. Or, if you prefer, you can set time limits — not just broad screen time limits, but individual limits for certain apps or sites, in addition to seeing the location of any given phone and a history of what’s been blocked.

You can install the Circle app on their phones but the Circle Home Plus takes it to the next level, allowing you to implement these controls across your entire network — phones, tablets, Chromebooks, gaming consoles, anything that can access the web. The Home Plus comes with a year subscription to the service, while subsequent usage costs $129 per year — or you can grab the box with a lifetime subscription up front for $300.

In this age of malware attacks and phishing attempts, you need more security than simply an antivirus and a firewall. In our attempt to find out good software that counters malware attacks and provide better privacy on the Internet, we already covered The Onion Router (TOR) – for secure browsing and SpotFlux – for private free VPN. This review of OpenDNS is another in the series and checks out the features of OpenDNS, a cloud-based service that not only provides faster Internet browsing but also offers security against phishing attempts.

Using OpenDNS parental control program, you can also control what content can your kids see when they log into the Internet using any of their devices. And since it is a cloud and DNS based service, you need not configure these content settings for each device. You can simply set them up, and OpenDNS will apply it to all the devices used – by your kids – to access the Internet.

OpenDNS Setup

Before setting up OpenDNS, you might want to create an account with OpenDNS so that you can use OpenDNS parental controls program. The parental control allows you to block different categories of websites from being displayed on your computer network.

The registration process is simple and fast as you just have to enter one of your existing email IDs and a password to secure the account. The first step after creating the account is to set up your computer to use the DNS address provided by OpenDNS. You can opt to change the settings in the router or through your computer, depending upon how you connect to the computer.

The OpenDNS webpage gives you three options as soon as you register with the service: Computer; Router and DNS Server. When you select one of these, it walks you through the process of setting up the new DNS server addresses. If you already know how to change the DNS server settings, the DNS for OpenDNS servers are: 208.67.222.222 and 208.67.220.220.

OpenDNS Review

Review of Open DNS: Browsing Speed

After switching to OpenDNS, I noticed that I had a faster Internet. The time taken to resolve URLs was much less compared to the other DNS service I was already using. Since the time used in resolving URLs is low, you experience an overall faster Internet.

When you switch to OpenDNS, you need to point your router or computer to the cloud-based service. You need not install any software or additional hardware for using the OpenDNS domain name resolving service. You may need IP Updater only if you are on dynamic IP and wish to use parental control features (see parental controls below).

OpenDNS says that it has 12 data centers across the globe and claims it has not seen a single downtime since it started operating. This, it says, is because of the DNS queries dropping to other name servers automatically in case one of their data center malfunctions.

According to OpenDNS, they scale their service when your bandwidth usage exceeds and thus do not prove to be a bottleneck when it comes to browsing. If you read our review of SpotFlux, it prevents adware from being presented on websites, so the Internet usage actually decreases. However, the URL resolving time with SpotFlux was a little more when I compare it to OpenDNS.

It is not wise to compare OpenDNS with SpotFlux but still, for your knowledge, SpotFlux provides anonymous browsing by changing your actual IP while OpenDNS requires your IP to be registered with it for its parental control program. You can use SpotFlux if you are more concerned about your privacy plus security and OpenDNS if you want parental controls in addition to security.

Review Of OpenDNS – Security

OpenDNS employs one of the best anti-phishing solutions known as Phishtank. The Phishtank contains information about phishing websites. It is a place when users can add and confirm reports of phishing websites. Since Phishtank is maintained by Internet users, you can expect the data to be the most current and hence, you can trust OpenDNS to protect you from phishing websites. You can find more information about Phishtank at their website.

OpenDNS employs similar methods to prevent botnets and malware-infected sites from contacting you. Since OpenDNS is responsible for resolving URLs of websites, if it finds any request for a website it knows is infected, it will block the request thereby protecting you from infections. In other words, it stops malicious domains from resolving at the DNS level to protect you from infections.

Review Of OpenDNS – Parental Control Program

Here is a drawback if you are using a network that employs Dynamic IP. I call it a drawback because you will have to download and install an IP updater software before you can set up your network to use the complete OpenDNS protection. For static IPs, all you need to do is to add your IP address to your OpenDNS account (Dashboard). In either case, you can give it a friendly name so that you can identify the network on the dashboard and in the IP updating software.

Once you are done adding your network to your OpenDNS dashboard, you can go ahead and set up web filtering. Here is a look at what I got soon after adding my network to OpenDNS.

Upon selecting the options and customizing them, you have to click on Apply to apply the settings to the entire network. Remember that since it is the Domain Name System your network is using, all devices on that network will have to abide by the rules of filtering you have just set up.

You can further enhance security by blocking individual sites. The option to block websites is given right below the above dashboard that allows you set up content filtering.

You can display a custom message to your kids when they encounter a blocked website. Just click on Customization on the left panel and scroll down a little to reach Block Page. Under this option, you can set up the page that appears when any user of your network encounters a blocked web page. You can use this custom page to educate kids on why you blocked the website.

By default, the data collection (the websites that the users of your network have been visiting) is turned off. It is useful to turn it on so that you can keep an eye on what all websites your kids are visiting. To turn it on, click on Logs in the left panel on the OpenDNS dashboard and in the right panel, click to tick the box against Enable Stats and Logs. You can later view the data by clicking on the Data tab on the top of OpenDNS dashboard.

Overall, this parental control feature of OpenDNS is highly customizable and hence, recommended by me. We talked about few free parental control programs for Windows some time back. You can use OpenDNS in addition to one of those programs as it will not interfere with any of them. On a scale of 1 to 5 where 5 is best, this review of OpenDNS and its parental control programs gives it a rating of 4. If you have been using OpenDNS, I would like to know your experience. Please use the comment box below to add to the review.

Note that you just need to change your DNS settings to the ones mentioned in this article and opt-out of installing the IP Updater and creating an account with OpenDNS in case you do not wish to use OpenDNS parental control program. You will still be enjoying protection from Phishing sites.

UPDATE: Cisco completed its acquisition of OpenDNS. OpenDNS is now Cisco Umbrella.

OpenDNS Family Shield is a free DNS service that automatically blocks adult and other inappropriate content on your home internet network.

It’s a great way for parents to safeguard the internet for their children, allowing them to browse the web more safely.

As such sites may be more likely to harbor viruses and other malware, using this service could also be a useful tool in your antivirus arsenal, even if you don’t have children.

What Is A DNS Service?
What Is OpenDNS Family Shield
How To Set Up OpenDNS Family Shield
How Kids May Try To Bypass OpenDNS Family Shield
Conclusion

What Is A DNS Service?

Every website on the internet has a unique ‘IP address’ that is used to identify it – the IP address is a complex series of 4 numbers e.g. 216.58.204.78

That works well for computers, but not so good for us humans – there’s no way we can know that 216.58.204.78 is actually the IP address of the Google.com website.

Without getting too technical, DNS (Domain Name System) is like a phonebook of the internet – this service converts the human-friendly website addresses that we use into the numeric IP addresses that are the real location of websites.

So when you enter Google.com into your web browser, your request is sent to a DNS service – it looks up the IP address for Google.com and finds that it is 216.58.204.78 and then visits that web server to fetch the relevant page to display to you.

All this happens in an instant – automatically and behind the scenes. A DNS service enables us to use simple human-friendly website addresses and not have to worry about numeric IP addresses.

By default, most home routers will use the DNS service of your broadband provider but you can change this to use any other DNS service – like OpenDNS Family Shield.

What Is OpenDNS Family Shield

OpenDNS is a well known company, now owned by the massive tech conglomerate Cisco Systems. It provides a reliable (and sometimes faster) alternative to using the DNS service of your own broadband provider.

However, the free Family Shield is different to the standard OpenDNS setup – because it automatically blocks most adult sites, proxy servers and phishing sites.

OpenDNS Family Shield replaces your current DNS service and is free for home users – features include:

It is preconfigured to block adult websites across your internet connection. Just turn it on and go. The filter is always up-to-date, adding new sites 24/7
When you set up Family Shield on your router, every device in your home is protected – your kids’ laptop, Xbox, Playstation, iPad and even their phone (via WiFi)
It takes the guesswork out of identifying fraudulent sites. Family Shield automatically blocks known phishing and identity theft websites
Family Shield may free you of frustrating, intermittent internet outages and make web pages load faster (if the DNS service of your broadband provider is frequently overloaded or unavailable)

How To Set Up OpenDNS Family Shield

There are 2 alternative ways to set up the service, the first is the most efficient:

1. Set up on home router – protects all devices

All devices that connect to the router (via ethernet cable or WiFi) are protected e.g. PC/laptop, games consoles and even mobile phones or tablets (via WiFi).

This is the recommended method as it protects any device that connects to the router without any further configuration – even new devices connected later on will be protected.

However, some routers provided by your broadband supplier may not allow you to change the DNS service – in this case you’d need to use the second method instead.

2. Set up OpenDNS Family Shield on each device

Obviously this could take much longer if you have lots of devices that connect to the router. And if you buy a new device later you will need to remember to configure that too.

Likewise, if you ever reinstall Windows or factory restore a tablet etc (anything that resets the DNS service back to default settings) you’ll need to setup the OpenDNS Family Shield service on that device again.

Configuration for both methods

You can sign up for a free account here if you wish but you don’t have to – you can just skip straight here to learn how to configure your DNS servers.

Detailed instructions and illustrations are given for both of the above methods – either Home Router or Computer Workstation (PC/laptop) or Smart device (e.g. phone or tablet).

Tip: always make a note of the existing DNS addresses in case you ever want to change them back in future.

For advanced users, who already know how to change the DNS server address, the OpenDNS Family Shield DNS servers are:

How Kids May Try To Bypass OpenDNS Family Shield

The service is a good way to easily block most adult content without having to configure complicated parental controls but it is not completely fool proof.

Unless further steps are taken, it is possible for kids with some tech knowledge (or ability to search Google!) to bypass the protection.

1. They may change the DNS servers on their own device

This is the biggest potential loophole. Whether you set up the DNS servers on the home router or on the individual device, anyone with admin rights could just change the DNS servers on their own device back to use the original DNS servers.

Fortunately it is easy to prevent this – at least on a Windows computer or laptop. Simply make the user account of the child a Standard (limited) user – if necessary create a new user account just for them and don’t let them know the password of the Admin account.

Standard users are not able to change their own DNS settings without knowing the Admin password. An added advantage is that Standard users also can’t install new programs without knowing the Admin password – a good way to prevent kids installing software that might be able to work around the Family Shield service.

To set up a Standard user account see my guide guide here.

2. They may use a proxy server

Family Shield blocks most well known proxy servers but the list is vast and they change daily so a determined child will eventually be able to find one that is available. By using a proxy server they can bypass the Family Shield DNS settings and age inappropriate content will not be blocked.

3. Some inappropriate sites may not be included yet

Similarly, however often OpenDNS update the list of blocked inappropriate sites (and they do update it 24/7) there may always be a few new websites that escape their notice for a while so they are not blocked yet.

Conclusion

OpenDNS Family Shield offers a quick and easy way for parents to block most adult and other age inappropriate or unsafe content.

Whilst it isn’t a full content filtering system, using the router configuration option is a simple ‘set and forget’ method that could help make web surfing safer for children – and potentially quicker or more reliable, if your broadband provider’s own DNS servers are overloaded.

Long story short I will have a 2 children who are on the cusp of teenagerdom staying with my this summer. We have always kept an eye on our 4 and 6 year old kids web usage but with older kidscoming into the picture I am a little more concerned about naughty web habits. I currently have a full windows domain, dns servers, mail server etc etc. I would like to implement some kind of dns based content filtering and then deploy that filtering to the kids devices via dhcp. I would like to avoid using proxy based filtering as proxy’s kinda suck. I would also like to maintain my normal network and dns scope for the adult used equipment. I was thinking of putting up another ssid and vlan with a dhcp scope for the kids and go that route but figured there may be other ways to skin this proverbial cat. Have any of you guys done anything like this? I know it is kinda a odd duck

OpenDNS, free for home use.

Or Norton DNS, also free, cannot edit categorys tho.

Whichever one you go with, make a rule in your router so only those DNS servers can be used.

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Short Description

1 Parental Control Setup Guide This guide will show you how to setup parental controls on your Genexis router. The paren.

Description

Parental Control Setup Guide This guide will show you how to setup parental controls on your Genexis router. The parental controls used in this guide are provided by OpenDNS. By using this you can either choose Family Shield, an easy to set-up predefined filtering option to block adult content, or Home, a customisable filtering and security option, both of which are free to use.

To Set-Up Family Shield Open up a web browser of your choice and browse to the login page of your Genexis router by typing ”192.168.1.254” into the address bar. You will then be prompted to put in a username and password.

The default credentials are: Username: admin Password: admin Once logged in, the system information page for the Genexis router will load. From there, click on the network tab highlighted below:

Gigaclear plc, Windrush Court, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 1SY Reg No 7476617

Once the network page has loaded you shall be met with the following screen where you need to enter the DNS addresses of the OpenDNS Family Shield server.

Enter the following two addresses the fields called “Domain Name Server 1” and “Domain Name Server 2”: 208.67.222.123 208.67.220.123

Gigaclear plc, Windrush Court, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 1SY Reg No 7476617

Once you have done this, click the “Save WAN Settings” button. To verify that the changes have taken effect, navigate to the “Status” tab.

Once the status page has loaded, verify that the DNS addresses that you have just added are visible. You should see something like this under the WAN section:

If you do not see the DNS addresses that you have just added, try this process again. If the problem persists, please contact Gigaclear Customer Care. The setup of Family Shield is now complete. You are now protected from adult content.

Gigaclear plc, Windrush Court, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 1SY Reg No 7476617

To Set-Up Customisable Home Protection: To set-up OpenDNS Home, firstly go through the Family Shield set-up. When you come to entering the DNS addresses on the “Network” page, instead of entering the Family Shield addresses, enter the following addresses: 208.67.222.222 208.67.220.220 Make sure you click the “Save WAN Settings” button. Once you have completed this, you need to open up a web browser of your choice and navigate to: Once there, you need to fill in the sign up form on the right hand side.

Note: Password must be between 8 and 256 characters long. Password must contain at least one uppercase and one lowercase letter. Password must contain at least one digit and one special character (for example: *, $, or π). You will be asked to confirm your email address once you have signed up.

Gigaclear plc, Windrush Court, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 1SY Reg No 7476617

Once you have logged into your new OpenDNS account, navigate to your dashboard settings or go to the following web address: You should see the following page displayed on your screen with your public IP address in the “IP” field. If you want to verify this is your address, you can type “what is my IP address” into your preferred search engine, or you can call our customer care team. You will need to now click “Add this network”.

Next, the below screen will appear. You will need to fill this box in accordingly. If you have a fixed IP service, you can untick the box in section 2, otherwise you will be advised to download the OpenDNS Updater for your preferred operating system. This program shall automatically update your IP address should it ever change. Now you can select your address from the “Settings For” drop down box and set-up your parental controls to best suit your needs. You can either choose one of the predefined filtering levels or create your own custom filtering profile. Individual domains can also be either blocked or allowed irrespective of the filtered categories selected. Once you have applied your settings, it can take up to three minutes for them to take effect. Gigaclear plc, Windrush Court, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 1SY Reg No 7476617

Verifying your settings: To verify your parental controls are working correctly, try visiting the following web pages:

Gigaclear plc, Windrush Court, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 1SY Reg No 7476617

– This page will tell you if you have managed to correctly configure your Genexis router.

– This page will test your security settings for Phishing.

– This is an example adult site to test that you are blocking pornography sites.

Gigaclear plc, Windrush Court, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 1SY Reg No 7476617

If you did some search on this topic, you are probably confused. Most articles on this topic confuse readers rather than helping them. Why you need a VPN server at home First of all, let’s make it clear that there’s only one reason to set up a VPN server at home: you want to access […]

If you want to host a server at home (for example, VPN server, Plex server or game server, etc.), you need a public IP address. Nowadays, more and more Internet Service Providers (ISPs) move their customers behind Carrier Grade NATs (CGNATs) due to the increasing scarcity of IPv4 addresses. Normal ways to set up a […]

With the default configuration, your router uses DNS servers run by your ISP. As such, the ISP can easily collect information about the websites you’re visiting (and the apps you’re using). You can override the router’s default settings to make it use other DNS services such as OpenDNS, Quad9 or Cloudflare. But since the DNS […]

You can set up multiple configurations in NextDNS, each with different block lists. These configurations map neatly to the Access Control profiles on the pcWRT router. As a result, you can apply different NextDNS filtering configurations to different devices on your network directly from the router, without the need to set up NextDNS on each […]

TL;DR: the pcWRT router naturally protects you from the 6 leak scenarios listed below (i.e., no extra work needed). But if you’re using another VPN solution, read on. 1. DNS Leak DNS Leak is the most common type of leak when you are connected to a VPN. Even after your VPN is successfully connected, there’s […]

What’s your location? A post on Reddit reported that Google continues to display his actual address despite him using a VPN, turning off WiFi and blocking Geolocation. He even tried fresh installations. Intrigued by the post, I did the tests described here to understand the behavior. To eliminate the possibility of tracking by cookies, I […]

A lot of people use OpenDNS on their home networks to block contents that might be harmful to children. Some were asking whether OpenDNS can add a filtering category to block unwanted ads. The answer from OpenDNS was no, and for good reason. As a result, if you want to use a DNS service to […]

There are many situations where a home VPN server may be useful. First of all, it allows you to securely access your home network remotely. And if you have a network wide ad blocker at home, you can still use it while you are away, by tunneling your device back to the home network. You […]

When the WyzeCam started selling a few years back, there was an alarming review on Amazon stating that it was sending data all over the world. The reviewer claimed seeing traffic heading to China, Japan and Germany, among other locations. The review on Amazon is probably no longer available. But the discussion on Reddit is […]

Configure your router to use OpenDNS When you block the Social Networking category on OpenDNS, Snapchat will be blocked. In order to make this work, you’ll need to sign up for OpenDNS Home, and configure your router to use OpenDNS. Here are the steps: Create an OpenDNS account. Enter the OpenDNS addresses, 208.67.222.222 and 208.67.220.220, […]

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Editor’s Rating
Overall
Features
Price
Customer Support

Positives

Totally free Covers an entire household Constantly updated filters Improves internet speed

Negatives

Easy to bypass No customization

Wouldn’t it be easier if you could keep your family safe online without having to do anything? After you install OpenDNS Family Shield on your home internet connection or device you never have do anything else to filter out websites your children shouldn’t be seeing – Family Shield does all the work for you. Since its beginnings in 2005, California-based OpenDNS has been improving computers’ Domain Name Systems. So, once you replace your DNS with the OpenDNS Family Shield it will automatically start filtering out adult websites for you. Another great benefit is that OpenDNS is faster than the commercial ISPs’ own default DNS, so you’ll even see increased internet speed. What makes all this even better is that OpenDNS does all this and more for free.

Features

Since OpenDNS Family Shield only needs to be installed once there aren’t many customizable features available. The OpenDNS website setup guides are straightforward and users who don’t even know what DNS is will still be able to easily install the Family Shield DNS. Once installation is complete your family is immediately protected for good.

OpenDNS Family Shield works by having a built-in list of websites that are filtered and OpenDNS keeps this list continuously updated. For example, there are thousands of proxy websites your child may use to get around the Family Shield but OpenDNS constantly updates the list of blocked sites to prevent this. Of course, since new proxies spring up overnight its coverage can’t be 100% accurate but we couldn’t find a proxy that OpenDNS hadn’t already beat us to. If you do go to one of the sites blocked by OpenDNS Family Shield and if you feel the block is incorrect, you’re able to report it directly to OpenDNS itself.

OpenDNS Family Shield Setup

Devices

Blocked Page

The default settings for Family Shield block pornography, web proxies, and phishing sites but if you want more filtering options then you’ll need to sign up for an OpenDNS Home account. The Home accounts are totally free and from there you’ll have access to one of the most impressive web content filter lists that we’ve seen. Besides the obvious categories such as pornography, gambling, and other adult content, you can choose to block things like parked domains, web spam, or even search engines. Many parents have concerns about children using social media; fortunately OpenDNS does have a filter that will lock down all social media websites. That being said, OpenDNS Family Shield isn’t completely bulletproof. More tech-savvy children who may know of things like Tor browser will find that Family Shield does nothing to prevent Tor from by passing its filters completely.

Device Support

You have two setup options with OpenDNS: you can either set it up on your router or individually on a device. Setting Family Shield up on your router means that every computer, phone, tablet, or even video games console is immediately covered, so your entire house is protected in one easy step.

If you’d prefer to just set it up on your children’s devices, then of course you have the option to do that too. Since Family Shield doesn’t require any applications to be installed it means that you’re able to set it up on every device. Simply follow the online guides and you can then install OpenDNS on Windows, macOS, Android, iOS, smart TVs, and just about every other device that connects to the internet.

Pricing

Obviously, the great thing about OpenDNS Family Shield is that it’s totally free, however there are paid tiers available. OpenDNS VIP Home costs $19.95 a year and it does everything Family Shield does, but it also keeps internet stats for the past year and allows you to create an internet environment made up only of white-listed websites. There’s also the business-focused OpenDNS Prosumer package for $20 per user that will do all of the above and features built-in protection from malware. One concern we do have is that OpenDNS doesn’t have any money-back guarantees and doesn’t give refunds, so we strongly recommend you thoroughly try out Family Shield before you think about upgrading to VIP Home or Prosumer.

Customer Service

You might expect something free to have little customer service, but that’s not the case with OpenDNS Family Shield. OpenDNS features 24/7 support via email, FAQ guides, and a community forum. Finding help with a particular topic can be a pain since the OpenDNS website takes you to the parent company Cisco for its support. Cisco covers a large number of other services so finding something specific means you have to wade through all of its other software before you encounter OpenDNS topics, and unfortunately there isn’t any support from Facebook or Twitter.

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Welcome to the Freeola Support pages. This guide is designed to take you though the basic steps for configuring OpenDNS Web Filtering and parental controls for use with Freeola Broadband. For more internet help topics please visit our main Support Page.

OpenDNS offer corperate or household parental monitoring which can be used to prevent users of your Internet connection from accessing websites with content that you would not like to be available, such as pornography, gambling or even social networking. If a DNS request is made for known websites of this type, the user trying to access the page is instead shown a splash page telling them that the website is blocked.

Firstly you will need to visit the OpenDNS website and select the option to sign up for a free account. Premium accounts are also available, should you require any of the additional features.

How to set up whole-house parental controls with opendns

You will then need to fill out the signup form provided to create an account with OpenDNS. This will involve providing your email address and a password as the login details for your new account. You will also need to provide details of where the account will be used, depending on where you select, you may need to provide additional information.

How to set up whole-house parental controls with opendns

In the next step, you are provided with three different options as to where you would like to setup OpenDNS. At this point you should select the appropriate option and follow the instructions provided by OpenDNS to apply their DNS servers to your network setup. Alternatively you can follow through the guide for changing your DNS server settings.

How to set up whole-house parental controls with opendns

Once you have applied the openDNS DNS servers, you should be shown the following page which will confirm that the change was successful. Select OpenDNS Dashboard to continue.

How to set up whole-house parental controls with opendns

You will then be taken to the DNS Dashboard where you are able to manage your Networks (Internet Connections). At this point, your IP Address should have been picked up automatically, so you only need select Add This Network to proceed.

How to set up whole-house parental controls with opendns

You should then enter a name for your Network such as Home Broadband which will be used to identify this Network (Internet Connection) with OpenDNS in future. As all Freeola Internet connections come with a static IP address, you should untick the Yes, it is dynamic option and select Done.

How to set up whole-house parental controls with opendns

In order to then access the settings for your Network you should click the IP address beside your network label.

How to set up whole-house parental controls with opendns

You should then select your filtering level from the options provided. To view what is covered by each filtering level, you can select the view button. Alternatively, if none of the three options available are suitable, you can select custom and tick the categories that you would like to block. If you then click Apply, allow 3-10 minutes and restart your Internet browser, the changes should take effect.

How to set up whole-house parental controls with opendns

In order to test this, if you then attempt to access a website within the blocked categories you should see a page similar to the following. If this shows, congratulations the setup is now complete. In order to make changes, you will need to login to your account with OpenDNS using the email address and password that you provided.

How to set up whole-house parental controls with opendns

Parental controls can filter the web, blocking inadvertent access to inappropriate websites. There are a variety of ways to do this, from configuring network-wide parental controls on your router to using the parental controls built into Windows or third-party software.

Web filtering is best used to restrict the web for young children, preventing them from accidentally wandering into the seedier corners of the Internet. Teenagers are adept at finding their ways around parental controls if they want to.

On Your Router

One of the easiest ways to set up parental controls is by configuring them on your router. Your router functions as the choke point where all the Internet traffic for your network flows through. Setting up parental controls here will allow you to perform web filtering for all the devices on your network — computers, smartphones, tablets, and even game consoles with built-in browsers.

Some routers ship with built-in parental controls. If your router has this feature, it will often be advertised on the box and will generally be explained in the manual. You can go to the router’s web-based configuration pages and set up the parental controls for your network.

Many routers don’t include parental controls, but you can use OpenDNS to set up parental controls on any router. To do this, you’ll just need to change your router’s DNS server settings to use OpenDNS. OpenDNS allows you to set up an account and configure web filtering — you can select different types of categories of websites to block. Websites you block will redirect to a “This site is blocked” message when visited on your network.

For more information about changing your router’s settings, refer to its manual.

How to set up whole-house parental controls with opendns

If you would like a device on your network not to be filtered, you can change its DNS server manually so it won’t use OpenDNS. Of course, this means that anyone on your network can change their DNS server and bypass the filtering. Like we said, such filters can be helpful for your children, but a teenager can get around it.

On Windows 7

Windows 7 has some built-in parental controls that allow you to control what time a user account can log into the computer and what programs it can use. This is helpful if your kids use separate user accounts on your computer.

How to set up whole-house parental controls with opendns

However, Windows 7 doesn’t include a web filter. Microsoft does still offer Family Safety, a free program that allows you to set up web filtering on Windows 7. Install the Family Safety program on your Windows 7 computer and you’ll be able to manage its settings from Microsoft’s Family Safety website. The program is available as part of Microsoft’s Windows Essentials package.

How to set up whole-house parental controls with opendns

On Windows 8 or Windows 10

Windows 8 and Windows 10 have integrated parental controls that combine Windows 7’s time limits and program access controls with Family Safety’s web filtering and more new features. You can manage your settings and view reports from the same Family Safety website. All you need to do is check the “Is this a child’s account?” box when setting up a new user account on Windows 8. The account will be marked as a child’s account and can be managed from the Family Safety website online.

Read more about using parental controls on Windows 8.

How to set up whole-house parental controls with opendns

With Third-Party Software

You can also turn to third-party parental controls. Many Internet security suites come with built-in parental controls. If you have a security suite installed on your computer, check if it has built-in parental controls.

There are also dedicated parental control solutions you can pay for, like the famous Net Nanny that everyone has heard of. However, you don’t need to pay for a parental control solution. There are many other free web filtering solutions you can use. For example, Norton offers a free Norton Family parental control application that seems to be widely recommended. Try doing a search online and you’ll find many other options that may fit your needs.

How to set up whole-house parental controls with opendns

Of course, no parental controls are perfect. They won’t block everything bad and may occasionally block something good. Sufficiently motivated teenagers can also get around them, if only by leaving your house and accessing the Internet elsewhere or using their smartphone.

Image Credit: San José Library on Flickr

↓ 01 – OpenDNS FamilyShield | 208.67.222.123 / 208.67.220.123

How to set up whole-house parental controls with opendns

OpenDNS Home is a free internet based parental control solution which allows parents to manage web access on every device that accesses the Internet on a home network including, wired and wireless computers and laptops, network enabled game systems and internet enabled wireless devices such as iPods and ipads. Works great on Microsoft’s Windows 10 and Apple’s macOS.

OpenDNS categorizes websites into 56 categories, like “adult,” “games,” “academic fraud” and “social media.” Parents can block entire categories of content, or just choose to block individual websites that are problematic or unsafe for your family. Or, for easier setup, you can choose a filtering level: low, medium or high. The low filtering level blocks just adult content, where the high filtering level blocks adult content, social networking sites, video sharing sites and more.

↓ 02 – Yandex.DNS Family | 77.88.8.7 / 77.88.8.3

How to set up whole-house parental controls with opendns

Yandex has over 80 DNS servers located in different cities and countries. Each user’s queries are processed by the server closest to him/her, that’s why sites open faster with Yandex.DNS in “Basic” mode. Many users want to protect themselves and their children from adult sites. Yandex’s family search algorithms can detect not family friendly keywords. When opening an adult site on a computer or in a network with Yandex.DNS in “Family” mode, the user will only see a closure.

↓ 03 – Comodo SecureDNS 2.0 | 8.26.56.26 / 8.20.247.20

How to set up whole-house parental controls with opendns

As a leading provider of computer security solutions, Comodo is keenly aware of the dangers that plague the Internet today. Secure DNS helps users keep safe online with its malware domain filtering feature.

SecureDNS references a real-time block list (RBL) of harmful websites (i.e. phishing sites, malware sites, spyware sites, excessive advertising sites, etc.) and will warn you whenever you attempt to access a site containing potentially threatening content. Directing your requests through highly secure servers can also reduce your exposure to the DNS Cache Poisoning attacks that may affect everybody else using your ISP.

Secure DNS 2.0’s new dashboard, available to beta users, makes it simple to set content filters at a network level to help prevent unwanted content from being accessed in your home or network. To enable, simply add your network and set the categories of domains you wish to block. Customize your preferences from more than 25 categories, including proxy and anonymizer blocking.

↓ 04 – Dyn Internet Guide | 216.146.35.35 / 216.146.36.36

How to set up whole-house parental controls with opendns

Finally, a better, faster, and safer way to surf the Internet with our recursive DNS service. Take complete control of your Internet experience by blocking unsafe or unwanted content based on categories or via custom white/black lists with Dyn’s free Internet Guide.

Easily install within your router to provide the same safe and fast experience on all devices connected to your network or use our Update Client to configure IG on a local Windows or macOS computer. Simply install our update client to monitor your device, and your hostname will update whenever its IP address changes.

↓ 05 – DNS for Family | 94.130.180.225 / 78.47.64.161

How to set up whole-house parental controls with opendns

DNS for Family is created with the intention of providing safe and clean internet to users all around the world. As you might be aware that today the internet is an open ended place, anybody can create websites, do some publishing and bring users to their websites.

On one hand this is very productive for everybody especially when we consider that it can be used to share knowledge, news, entertainment and lot’s of productive and fun activities with each other. Website creators earn money by placing advertisements on their website and visitors receive the service. So it’s a nice circle.

DNS for Family aims to block websites which are considered porn so that you and your children can safely surf the internet to their heart’s desire without worrying that your children might get followed to such harmful websites.

↓ 06 – Norton ConnectSafe [ Discontinued ] | 199.85.126.30 / 199.85.127.30

How to set up whole-house parental controls with opendns

Norton ConnectSafe is a free service that provides a first layer of defense by blocking unsafe sites automatically. On a computer, Norton ConnectSafe does not replace the comprehensive protection of a full security product such as Norton Internet Security or Norton 360.

Instead, Norton ConnectSafe provides basic browsing protection and content filtering for all Web-enabled devices on your home network. Blocks Unwanted Content – Norton ConnectSafe helps keep your kids safe from Web sites with undesirable content. Norton ConnectSafe blocks inappropriate content in 23 different languages.

Introduction

In this chapter, the router will be configured to help realize the goal of whole house every device parental controls. At the end of this chapter, the router will get the WAN from the main router, the LAN will be configured as a separate and secure subnet that uses OpenDNS, the router will block ads, and the router will force the US Google domain to safe search.

The following steps will be performed:

Step One: WAN Settings

In Tomato, go to the Basic/Network menu and look at the settings under WAN/Internet. Change the WAN IP type to static and set the IP address to something outside the DHCP range of the main router.

For FIOS routers, set the IP Address to 192.168.1.151 with a Gateway value of 192.168.1.1.

For Comcast routers, set the IP Address to 10.0.0.51 with a Gateway value of 10.0.0.1.

The RT now has a static address on the main router and uses the primary router as the Internet source.

Step Two: LAN Settings (For Primary, skip this step)

In Tomato, go to the Basic/Network menu and look at the settings under LAN. Change the IP address of the RT to 192.168.2.1 with a range of 2-51. Set the static DNS to 192.168.2.1. That just means that the RT will look for the DNS server IP addresses only on the RT (on itself). Then change the primary and secondary DNS to OpenDNS . The IP addresses are shown on the screen capture below.

Your LAN settings window should now look like the above screen shot. The RT now is configured with a safe and secure subnet that is completely removed from the main router network, and uses OpenDNS as the only DNS.

Since you’re already on the Tomato screen with the wireless security settings, go ahead and change the SSID and security to whatever you like. Just don’t make the SSID the same as the primary router.

Lastly, to make sure that the OpenDNS settings cannot be overridden, go to the Tomato menu labeled “Advanced”, then click on DHCP/DNS. Make sure to check the field labeled “Intercept DNS port (UDP 53)”. It’s the fourth item in the dialog box. See screen shot below. Don’t change anything else.

This prevents the filtered user from entering another DNS server in Windows (by modifying Device TCP-IP properties). Otherwise that DNS would override the RT DNS specifications.

At this point, connect the WAN port of the RT to one of the four Ethernet ports on the primary router using an Ethernet cable. Disable the wireless on your laptop. Shut down both routers, restart them and test to make sure that you have an Internet connection on your PC and that you can surf the web. Also test your wireless settings to make sure you can connect, either with the PC you’re using for this setup, or another wireless device.

Step Three: Ad Blocking

Install a UNIX shell script that starts at router boot and blocks advertisements at the host file level. On the Tomato menu, click on Administration, then on Scripts. Click on the WAN up tab, and insert the following script.

wget -O – | tr -d ‘\r’ | sed ‘s/0.0.0.0/127.0.0.1/g’ > /etc/hosts
logger DOWNLOADED PETER

echo “127.0.0.1 adwords.google.com” >> /etc/hosts
echo “127.0.0.1 pagead.googlesyndication.com” >> /etc/hosts
echo “127.0.0.1 pagead2.googlesyndication.com #[Google AdWords]” >> /etc/hosts
echo “127.0.0.1 syndicate.googlesyndication.com” >> /etc/hosts
echo “127.0.0.1 syndicate2.googlesyndication.com” >> /etc/hosts
echo “127.0.0.1 googlesyndication.com” >> /etc/hosts
echo “127.0.0.1 adservices.google.com” >> /etc/hosts
echo “127.0.0.1 syndicate.google.com” >> /etc/hosts
echo “127.0.0.1 syndicate2.google.com” >> /etc/hosts
echo “127.0.0.1 ssl.google-analytics.com” >> /etc/hosts
echo “127.0.0.1 #[Google Analytics]” >> /etc/hosts
echo “127.0.0.1 google-analytics.com” >> /etc/hosts
echo “127.0.0.1 imageads.googleadservices.com” >> /etc/hosts
echo “127.0.0.1 imageads1.googleadservices.com” >> /etc/hosts
echo “127.0.0.1 imageads2.googleadservices.com” >> /etc/hosts
echo “127.0.0.1 imageads3.googleadservices.com” >> /etc/hosts
echo “127.0.0.1 imageads4.googleadservices.com” >> /etc/hosts
echo “127.0.0.1 imageads5.googleadservices.com” >> /etc/hosts
echo “127.0.0.1 imageads6.googleadservices.com” >> /etc/hosts
echo “127.0.0.1 imageads7.googleadservices.com” >> /etc/hosts
echo “127.0.0.1 imageads8.googleadservices.com” >> /etc/hosts
echo “127.0.0.1 imageads9.googleadservices.com” >> /etc/hosts
echo “127.0.0.1 >> /etc/hosts
echo “127.0.0.1 attl.staticjs.net” >> /etc/hosts

# echo “216.239.38.120 >> /etc/hosts

killall -1 dnsmasq
logger DOWNLOADED PETER Extra entries

Scroll to the bottom of the Scripts page, and click on Save. Then power down the router, and reboot it. To test ad blocking, now go to any web page loaded with ads and see if the ads still appear.

If all you wanted was ad-blocking, you’re done! Nothing below or in chapter three applies to you. Connect to your new router and enjoy an ad-free web surfing experience on all your devices.

Step Four: Force Google Safe Search

When you configure OpenDNS in the next chapter it will block all global Google domain names except the US based That has to be forced to a safe search mode. That requires a simple one line entry in the WAN script file. In fact, it’s already in the script file shown above but is commented out with a # character. That’s because for simple ad blocking, the typical user would not want to also force a Google safe search.

If the goal is to implement parental controls, then that one line has to be uncommented so it will be executed. The line begins with “# echo 216”. It should not be hard to find. Remove the # character (which is used to comment a UNIX shell script) and the space right after it. Then be sure to scroll to the bottom of the page and click on the Save button. Then reboot the router.

Now you can test your router to the extent that it is set up. All Google searches should default to safe search. All non-US Google domains and all other search engines will be blocked by OpenDNS (which has not yet been set up so you won’t see that happen yet). Type some nasty keywords into the Google search engine and image search engine, and see what happens. You should not see any bad results. Also remember that ad blocking is now enabled. Test using some ad heavy sites and see if the ads are blocked. There should be plenty of white space on the pages where the ads would have appeared.

This finishes setting up the RT-N16 router. The next chapter describes the required OpenDNS configuration and how it works together with the router.

Last Updated: 4th June, 2020

Simply so, how can I control my child’s internet time?

Here are eight things you can do to make your internetparental controls a little more effective and harder tocircumvent.

Talk to Your Kids and Set Boundaries and Expectations.
Physically Lock up Your Router.
Set Router-Enforced Time Limits for Internet Access.
Disable Wireless Remote Administration of Your Router.

what is the best router for parental control? Our Top Picks

Best Budget: Linksys AC1750. Buy on AmazonBuy on Walmart.
Best Mini: Router Limits Mini. Buy on AmazonBuy onWalmart.
Best for Any Age: Circle with Disney.
Best for Smart Home: Netgear Nighthawk AC1900.
Best for Security: Symantec Norton Core.
Best for Multiple Devices: Netgear R7000P NighthawkAC2300.

how do I restrict my WiFi at home?

Steps

Connect to your Wi-Fi router in a web browser.
Log in using the admin username and password.
Find the MAC address of the device you want to restrict.
Click the Access Restrictions tab.
Click OK.
Create a new Access Policy list.
Enter the MAC addresses of the devices you want torestrict.
Click Save Settings.

Can you put parental controls on WIFI?

One of the easiest ways to set up parentalcontrols is by configuring them on your router. You cango to the router’s web-based configuration pages and set up theparental controls for your network. Many routers don’tinclude parental controls, but you can use OpenDNS toset up parental controls on any router.

How to set up whole-house parental controls with opendns The router is the part of the home network that all other devices go through to connect to the internet. Typically it is connected to either a cable modem or DSL modem connected to your internet service provider. In most homes today the routers provide wired and wireless connectivity. So any device that has to use that router to get to the internet will be subject to the rules of that router. Therefore, it makes sense that the router would be the best place to start parental control filtering. In the layered approach that I recommend, the router is the first layer. Adding this layer of protection to your router is relatively easy and free. Router filtering is the number one way people in tech are going to enforce filtering on their home networks. Therefore, if you have AT&T Uverse or other proprietary setup that does not allow you control over the DNS settings on the router in your home my advice is very simple — get something else!

Filtering based on DNS – Domain Name Service tells your router whether a certain website is allowed or not. There are two companies that are leaders in providing filtering through their DNS servers. They are Clean Browsing and OpenDNS. By assigning your router to use one of their DNS servers, you protect the whole network in your home. Both of these companies profit from selling their services to large businesses and school systems but they offer it free for simple networks like in a home. They each have a very reasonable pay versions which provide additional features such as additional filtering categories and reporting.

Differences Between Clean Browsing and OpenDNS

The founders of Clean Browsing appreciated what OpenDNS was doing for families but felt like there were a few things missing so they developed a product that has a few more options for family filtering. The paid version for OpenDNS is $19.95 per year, while the paid version of Clean Browsing is $5 per month.

Our Billion routers have the option to enable Parental Controls over your internet connection.

Use our guide on how to enable Parental Controls using your internet Connection

Procedure:

1) Go to and register an account

2) Once registered, log into OpenDNS.

3) Click on the ‘Settings’ tab along the top.

4) Take note of your IP address

How to set up whole-house parental controls with opendns

5) Enter your IP address into the box in the middle of the page. Please note: your IP address may be automatically entered, if so, skip step 5.

6) Click ‘ADD THIS NETWORK’.

7) Enter a friendly name and ensure the ‘Yes, it is Dynamic’ tick box is selected then click ‘Done’.

You do not need to download the OpenDNS. Updater for the service to work, it is an optional feature.

How to set up whole-house parental controls with opendns

8) To select the level of security for your network, choose your IP address from the drop down menu.

How to set up whole-house parental controls with opendns

9) Choose your suitable level of filtering and click Apply. Once your filtering account is setup, you need to apply this on your Billion router.

10) Hardwire a device into your ‘LAN1’ port on the back of your router. Please note: You will need an ethernet cable which is supplied with your Billion router.

11) Open your Internet Browser

12) In the address bar at the top enter 192.168.1.254(this is your router default IP address)

13) The username and password are both admin. Please note: if point 4 does not work, contact Call Flow Solutions.

How to set up whole-house parental controls with opendns

14) Click on ‘Configuration’ down the left hand side

15) Click on ‘Security’

16) Click on ‘Parental Control Provider’ 9. Enter the following details:

Hostname: OpenDNS
Username: (Email address you created on OpenDNS website, refer to point 1 at the start of the guide)
Password: (Password you created on OpenDNS website, refer to point 1 at the start of the guide)

18) Click on ‘WAN’ down the left hand side

Dependant on whether you are a Radio customer (Aerial installed) or a Fibre customer
(Fed via telephone line) this option will be different. Look at the column named ‘Description’. If you are a Radio customer you need to be looking at ‘EWAN’. If you are Fibre customer you need to be looking at ‘VDSL’.

19) Click ‘Edit’ against your appropriate option.

20) Now select ‘Parent Controls’

How to set up whole-house parental controls with opendns

21) Scroll down and click Apply, then close your Internet Browser.

22) Reboot your router by disconnecting the power for 10 seconds and plug back in.

23) Now test a webpage that you require to be blocked.

If your router gets factory reset (pin in the back) once OpenDNS has been setup, your router will pick up a new IP address which means OpenDNS will need to find your new IP address so it can continue blocking websites, this can take up to 10 minutes, so please just wait.
If you attempt to change the level of security whilst the router is powered on with an internet connection, you may need to switch off your router for 10 seconds, and then turn it back on for changes to take effect.

Posted: Jul 27, 2020 / 04:00 AM PDT / Updated: Jul 27, 2020 / 05:49 AM PDT

With so many activities canceled, your kids are probably spending more time online this summer than you expected! Here are several ways to set time limits and help make their time online is safe.

Follow Tech Reporter Rich DeMuro on Instagram for more tech news, tips and gadgets!

Circle Home Plus

For starters, I tested a device called Circle Home Plus. It physically plugs into your home network and helps you manage every device your child uses, including tablets, computers, phones, and streaming sticks.

How to set up whole-house parental controls with opendns

Each family member gets their own set of rules. Start with pre-configured filters for kids, teens and adults. Then, get specific, like whether to allow Fortnite, Minecraft or TikTok.

How to set up whole-house parental controls with opendns

You can time limits on specific apps and websites or pause the internet entirely. Circle is easy, complete and they’ve thought of nearly everything. As a parent, you’ll feel in control of your kid’s online experience. My favorite feature is the Reward, which lets you temporarily extend the time limit for an app. (Believe me, you’ll get a lot of use out of it)

Circle Home Plus is $130, which includes a year’s subscription. After that, you can continue with free basic features including filters, usage and history, but to truly keep all of the most useful features unlocked, a subscription runs $9.99 a month.

I can highly recommend Circle Home Plus as a complete family time limit and filtering solution. It just takes some getting used to setting up the rules at the beginning.

NextDNS

If you’re fine with a more DIY setup, check out NextDNS. You can’t set time limits, but you can restrict access to certain websites, apps, and games. You can also filter out adult content and make YouTube a bit safer by forcing restricted mode, which helps screen out “potentially mature content.”

How to set up whole-house parental controls with opendns

The service can also keep your entire network safe from malware.

NextDNS runs $2 a month or $20 a year with no special equipment required. You will have to tweak some settings on your devices or your home router to get it working properly.

Family Shield

For a totally free solution, check out OpenDNS Family Shield. You’ll have to change one setting on your router (basically the DNA nameservers) but OpenDNS can then protect your entire network from adult content. As long as you know how to access the settings on your router, the entire setup will take you just a few minutes.

How to set up whole-house parental controls with opendns

Bottom line: Setting up these safeguards does take some time and effort – and there might be some grumbling from the kids – but in the end, it will make you feel better about the time your kids are spending online.

Keep in mind you can also use the built-in tools on iOS and Android, but the solutions above will give you more flexibility and finer controls.

NOW: Listen to the Rich on Tech podcast, where I talk about the tech news I think you should know about and answer the questions you send me!

I am using the D-Link DIR-600L Wireless N150 Cloud Router, and I would like to setup or add a filter in the router to block inappropriate content, not allowing any of the connected users to access such content.

I tried OpenDNS and changed my DNS IP to 208.67.222.123 and 208.67.220.123 (source), but my ISP blocks these addresses. I asked on the OpenDNS forum for a solution and was answered that there is none.

I have looked into installing K9 Web Protection, but I would need in this case to install and set it up on all devices.

I can set the router’s WiFi to block individual websites, but I would like to block them all.

I have not found how I can use my router to block by keyword.

How to set up whole-house parental controls with opendns

6 Answers 6

As regarding your question about using keywords to filter-out content, here is what the manual says about the setup page for Parental Control:

Website URL:
Enter the keywords or URLs that you want to block (or allow).
Any URL with the keyword in it will be blocked (or allowed).

How to set up whole-house parental controls with opendns

As regarding your question of how to use OpenDNS, I am a bit puzzled about why your ISP would block it. As far as I know, there is no censorship of the Internet in India.

You can check it by entering in a Command Prompt (cmd):

If the answer text contains “not an OpenDNS resolver”, then your ISP has really redirected your DNS queries.

If it does not say that, then your ISP does not redirect your DNS queries, and you should be able to reach and use OpenDNS. In that case, it would help if you told us how you did the setup of OpenDNS in the router, because the problem might be caused by a simple mistake.

Your real problem might be that your DNS queries are raised over IPv6, so your OpenDNS settings cannot take effect. Having IPv6 enabled for the Internet connection will circumvent OpenDNS, since the OpenDNS servers you are trying to use have IPv4 addresses.

In this case, go into the Properties of the network connection on your PC, uncheck the IPv6 protocol, press OK, then reboot.

One of the most effective ways to monitor student activity is to limit their access to cellular data (most popular work around for monitoring) and then watch or monitor your entire internet connection. We have 4 suggested methods for this below (in order of preference):

Parental Controls on the Home Router – BEST – Description: Certain Netgear routers (we suggest the Netgear AC1750) include their own system (OpenDNS) as well as Disney Circle. This is a hardware device for your home that tracks ALL traffic going through your home internet connection allowing for control , reporting and web filtering .

URL – Amazon or Best Buy

Pros – one-time cost; tracks time online and per app; push notifications; internet pause (including bed time); tracks all home traffic, great web filtering, reputation and reporting

Cons – cost is normally under $120 (one-time and very reasonable);

Home Monitoring System – Disney Circle – BETTER – Description: Disney Circle is a hardware device for your home that tracks ALL traffic going through your home internet connection allowing for control , reporting and web filtering .

Pros – one-time cost; tracks time online and per app; push notifications; internet pause (including bed time); tracks all home traffic, great web filtering, reputation and reporting

Cons – cost is $99 (one-time and very reasonable)

Monitor the Internet Traffic – OpenDNS – GOOD – Description: OpenDNS is an online service that tracks ALL traffic going through your home internet connection allowing for both reporting (cost of $19.95 per year for reporting) and web filtering .

Pros – service is FREE, tracks all home traffic, great web filtering, reputation and reporting

Cons – only as good as how often you check; and cost for reporting

Monitor using WiFi Router – miscellaneous manufacturers -Good – Description: Individual WiFi Routers may allow a service that tracks ALL traffic going through your home internet connection allowing for web filtering .

Manufacturer – depends on your device (normal are Netgear, Linksys, Belkin and D-Link)

Pros – service is normally FREE, tracks all home traffic, some web filtering, and some reporting

Cons – capabilities specific to the hardware manufacturer

Jez Nolan

Overview

The most effective protection is education, but this is difficult when it comes to kids. Plus they are less sceptical and click on pretty much anything.

The system below uses a very simple process of blocking access to dodgy content.

Introduction to DNS

If a machine makes a call to anything on the Internet, it needs to find it using a thing called DNS. This is where, for example access is requested, and an IP address such as 173.194.41.183 is returned. The machine then connects to the relevant web server via the IP address.

Changing your DNS server settings on your devices, or better still your home router, will mean that any requests query servers that maintain a constantly updated list of bad sites. A standard IP address is issued (usually presenting a warning page) and not the bad site. Beautifully simple, and very effective.

Family Shield

This free service is provided by OpenDNS and is called Family Shield.

Quoting from their web site:

Instantly blocks access to adult websites No complicated configuration.
FamilyShield is pre-configured to block adult websites across your Internet connection. Just turn it on and go. The filter is always up-to-date, adding new sites 24/7.
Flexible parental controls that protect every Internet-connected device in your home, instantly.
When you set up FamilyShield on your router, every device in your home gets protected. That means everything: your kids’ Xbox, Playstation, Wii, DS, iPad, and even their iPhone. Learn More
Built-in anti-fraud and phishing protection.
Take the guesswork out of identifying fraudulent sites. FamilyShield automatically blocks phishing and identity theft websites. Learn More
Makes your Internet faster and more reliable.
Setting up FamilyShield frees you of frustrating, intermittent Internet outages and makes Web pages load faster, which makes your overall Internet connection faster.
Free.
OpenDNS FamilyShield is free to use for home networks. Some limitations apply.

Setting It Up

You will need to use the following two DNS servers on all machines. This can be set on the router, so that all machines on your network use these addresses, or on each machine individually.

There are more detailed instructions on how to do this on Windows, Macs, Unix, Linux, Mobile Devices, and Wii here and for various brand routers or generic router instructions here.

If you have any problems please leave a comment below, contact us on our contact page or send us a tweet.

Not for Businesses

This service is not for business use.

If you are interested in the more feature-rich service that provides further levels of protection, we provide the Umbrella service at £1.70 per user per month.

This service blocks the following:

Malware	Malicious software including drop servers and compromised websites that can be accessed via any application, protocol or port.
Drive-by Downloads/Exploits	Websites and files that are designed to run code without user intervention.
Mobile Threats	Threats that are designed to infect or adversely affect mobile devices such as phones and tablets.
Suspicious Response	Public DNS entries that resolve to your internal network space. These are sometimes associated with DNS rebinding attacks, which allow malicious scripts to access your internal network resources.
Dynamic DNS	Sites that are hosting dynamic DNS services. This technology can be used by attackers as an evasion technique against IP blacklisting.
Botnet	Compromised devices that attempt to communicate with hackers’ command and control servers via any application, protocol or port.
Phishing	Fraudulent websites that aim to trick users into handing over personal or financial information.
High Risk Sites and Locations	Domains and hostnames that are matching against our predictive security algorithms from the Security Graph.

+ an Intelligent Proxy enhances security by performing URL inspection of web traffic.

Internet access for student devices is filtered while at school. For grade 5-9 students, Internet access is also filtered using Apple’s built-in “Limit Adult Content” filters. For students in grade 10 and above, Internet access at home is not filtered, due to the wide range of family values relating to what parents and caregivers wish to allow their children to access while at home. This page is intended to provide some basic information for parents who wish to implement parental controls and filtering on their child’s device while at home.

Please note: Shrewsbury Public Schools does not evaluate, endorse, or support the products listed or linked on this page. This information is being presented as a convenience for parents in their efforts to filter their home networks.

There are a number of approaches available for parents who wish to implement parental controls on their child’s devices. However, in order prevent conflicts with the District’s management system and to prevent required functionality from being unintentionally disabled during the school day, no parental controls may be used that require installation on the device itself.

The preferred approach for parental controls of student devices is to filter and control Internet access using your home network. There are three main approaches to this – you may choose the approach that works best for your family:

Use your router’s built-in parental controls – This is generally the lowest-cost method and is built in to most routers but in some cases the setup may be involved. Please see the link for the manufacturer of your home router for more information:

Use a web-based service such as OpenDNS – This may be an effective option if your router does not have built-in parental controls. Depending on the plan you choose, there may be a cost involved.
Purchase a standalone product that plugs into your network such as Circle by Disney – This may be the easiest option to implement, however, depending upon the product chosen, there may be a cost involved. When choosing a product, please ensure that the product does not require installation onto the your child’s device directly.

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How to set up whole-house parental controls with opendns

Good news: God loves you

April 2020

Parents: The Porn-Free Family Plan + OpenDNS Family Shield. Please read. 6 tips.

What is DNS blocking?

Switch a single Mac to OpenDNS

Switch your router to the OpenDNS servers

Before you go

Rising user expectations require advanced features in the router to stay competitive

What are parental controls?

Content filtering

Example: DNS filtering in action

Internet access restrictions

Combining filtering with access restrictions

Security applications help differentiate the Wi-Fi router market

Related

Shopping Best Wi-Fi 6 wireless routers to shop in 2020

Best tech for parental control

Parental control with whole-network versatility: Circle

1. Circle Home Plus

OpenDNS Setup

OpenDNS Review

Review of Open DNS: Browsing Speed

Review Of OpenDNS – Security

Review Of OpenDNS – Parental Control Program

What Is A DNS Service?

What Is OpenDNS Family Shield

How To Set Up OpenDNS Family Shield

1. Set up on home router – protects all devices

2. Set up OpenDNS Family Shield on each device

Configuration for both methods

How Kids May Try To Bypass OpenDNS Family Shield

1. They may change the DNS servers on their own device

2. They may use a proxy server

3. Some inappropriate sites may not be included yet

Conclusion

Short Description

Description

Positives

Negatives

Features

OpenDNS Family Shield Setup

Devices

Categories

Blocked Page

Device Support

Pricing

Customer Service

On Your Router

On Windows 7

On Windows 8 or Windows 10

With Third-Party Software

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What Does it Mean for Software to Run Natively?

How does OpenDNS work?

How to Set up OpenDNS

2. Set up filtering levels for Internet Safety

Check to see your internet filtering is working.

↓ 01 – OpenDNS FamilyShield | 208.67.222.123 / 208.67.220.123

↓ 02 – Yandex.DNS Family | 77.88.8.7 / 77.88.8.3

↓ 03 – Comodo SecureDNS 2.0 | 8.26.56.26 / 8.20.247.20

↓ 04 – Dyn Internet Guide | 216.146.35.35 / 216.146.36.36

↓ 05 – DNS for Family | 94.130.180.225 / 78.47.64.161

↓ 06 – Norton ConnectSafe [ Discontinued ] | 199.85.126.30 / 199.85.127.30

Differences Between Clean Browsing and OpenDNS

Our Billion routers have the option to enable Parental Controls over your internet connection.

Procedure:

6 Answers 6

Jez Nolan

Overview

Introduction to DNS