OpenDNS for Parental Controls and Adware/Spyware protection

There is a free service out there, called OpenDNS, which replaces the regular DNS servers from your ISP. DNS stands for Domain Name Service(s). Explaining this internet lingo, these DNS servers "translate" the name www.google.com for instance to the appropriate IP address, or location on the internet. This translation is necessary every time you go to a website.

Normally, your ISP provides you automatically with DNS server settings and you may never have even heard of the term. Since these servers are so essential to browsing the internet, by tweaking the results they return, you can take advantage of some really interesting features!

The service OpenDNS provides takes advantage of that! For instance, say you have kids and want to prevent them from seeing the "bad" websites. To get to one of those websites, you still have to either click on a link or type in the address (say, www.badwebsite.com). OpenDNS maintains lists by category of these "bad" websites, and if you check off that you want those sites to be blocked, a request for www.badwebsite.com will not lead to that site, but instead, to a page on OpenDNS's server, indicating the site has been blocked.

So that's the mechanism. How do you take advantage of it?? It depends on your internet setup. First you have to manually replace the DNS servers that your ISP assigned to you. How hard or easy this is depends on your router type. If you don't have a router, or your router doesn't support changing just the DNS entries, you can still take advantage of the service by changing the settings in Windows 2000, XP (or Vista) manually. I suggest you look at the OpenDNS website for more information and some setup instructions. Secondly, you need to create a free account and select which site types you want to be blocked.

Of course, we here at RDVDB would be more than happy to set this up for you. It will most likely take less than one hour to set this up, depending on your router type, and the number of PC's you want to take advantage of these features.

The nicest thing about OpenDNS is that not only can it block pornographic websites, it can also block known adware/spyware sites. This dramatically reduces your chances of getting these things on your PC. Do note that OpenDNS is not 100% fail-safe (like anything out there). You can still get to the "bad" sites by typing in their IP address directly. Also, even though their lists are extensive, they won't have ALL sites listed. But it is a nice FREE layer of protection!