From the onset of the Covid19 pandemic, most of the schools and institutions closed their physical classes and turned to online education. But the big question remains, how safe are your little ones on the www?
The internet is full of knowledge and learning materials, but it’s also full of distractions that can be damaging to our children if left uncontrolled. You don’t want your children to get exposed to pornography, social media, gambling, etc. at a tender age. But the pandemic has placed powerful and connected devices in our kid’s hands, laptops, tablets, phones. And maybe you don’t even have time to monitor them physically as they use these devices.
Today I want to show you two simple and free solutions from OpenDNS and CleanBrowsing that can help you take control of what your children can access on the internet and hence create a safe browsing experience for your family.
A) OpenDNS FamilyShield
The OpenDNS FamilyShield is a free solution that is preconfigured to block adult content. The solution uses DNS content filtering technique to block out content that is deemed inappropriate for children e.g. pornography and gambling websites.
The setup requires you to change the automatic DNS servers assigned to your devices by your Internet Service Provider (ISP) and replace them with FamilyShield nameservers. The FamilyShield nameservers are:
- 208.67.222.123 (Primary)
- 208.67.220.123 (Secondary)
The setup will vary depending on the device you are using and the type of connection (wireless or wired). For complete up to date setup instructions, please follow this link [Setup Guide | OpenDNS]
B) CleanBrowsing DNS Filters
Another good platform that uses DNS content filtering and is worth our mention is CleanBrowsing, they have free and paid plans. Their free offer is a set of 3 predefined content filters; FamilyFilter, AdultFilter and SecurityFilter, you can implement any of their free filters by simply pointing your device to their DNS servers as below (they support both IPv4 and IPv6 addresses):
FamilyFilter
(Blocks access to all adult, pornographic and explicit sites. It also blocks proxy and VPN domains that are used to bypass the filters. Mixed content sites (like Reddit) are also blocked. Google, Bing and Youtube are set to the Safe Mode. Malicious and Phishing domains are blocked.)
- 185.228.168.168 (Primary)
- 185.228.169.168 (Secondary)
AdultFilter
(Blocks access to all adult, pornographic and explicit sites. It does not block proxy or VPNs, nor mixed-content sites. Sites like Reddit are allowed. Google and Bing are set to the Safe Mode. Malicious and Phishing domains are blocked.)
- 185.228.168.10 (Primary)
- 185.228.169.11 (Secondary)
SecurityFilter
(Blocks access to phishing, spam, malware and malicious domains. Our database of malicious domains is updated hourly and considered to be one of the best in the industry. Note that it does not block adult content.)
- 185.228.168.9 (Primary)
- 185.228.169.9 (Secondary)
For a complete UpToDate setup guide and description of what each of these filter does, please follow this link [Filters – DNS Content Filtering (cleanbrowsing.org)]
If we find another good and free DNS filtering platform that can help create a safe and clean internet experience, we shall update this article.
At Tech Junction Ltd, we strongly believe in creating a safe and clean internet environment for our children because without a doubt, our children will spend more time in this space since it has become a critical platform in today’s education system.
Please let us know how we can help you create a clean browsing environment for your family by contacting us through our email: info@techjunction.co or you can reach us through our LinkedIn page: Linkedin
Have a happy internet day!
