OpenDNS logs activity and sets custom filters based on your network’s IP address. I also recommend you leave suspicious responses off because this could cause problems with local sites on your network.Īdditional configuration options include creating a custom block page (the page displayed when OpenDNS blocks a site), caching for better DNS performance, and network IP address configuration, which I’ll discuss next. Suspicious Responses - This helps block DNS rebinding attacks.Įven though they appear to offer limited protection, I recommend you turn the Malware/Botnet and Phishing protection on.Phishing Protection - This feature blocks known phishing sites.Malware/Botnet Protection - This feature blocks botnet and malware sites that OpenDNS has identified.In addition to filters, you can also configure three security settings: Another approach is to choose the custom setting and handpick which categories you want to block.Ĭonfiguring security and advanced features You can see which categories are included by default in each of these levels. Via the dashboard you can set the OpenDNS filters to one of four predefined levels High, Moderate, Low, and None. We’ll come back to the network IP address configuration later. For starters, just accept the one it has detected. The first time you log in you’ll be asked for your network’s IP address. You need to log in to your OpenDNS dashboard to configure your content filters. You may want to test with an individual computer first. If you change your DNS settings at your router level you’ll be affecting most, if not all the devices on your network. OpenDNS then provides detailed instructions for how to change your DNS settings at the router level or at the individual device level. If you are using OpenDNS Home or Home VIP the first step is to create an account, which you can do with just an email address and password. Lastly, it has a whitelist only mode that restricts browsing to only the domains you specify. Second, it increases the time you can go back and view reports and logs from two weeks to one year. First, it increases the number of individual domains you can ban and whitelist from 25 to 50 domains. It works just like the Home plan, but with enhancements. Home VIP - This is the only paid plan of these three, with a fee of $19.95 a year.With that account you can view logs and reports of domains that are accessed and blocked. You need to create and account to use it. Home - This plan is similar to Family Shield but adds the ability to configure which filters are enabled and the ability to ban and whitelist individual domains.You also don’t need an account to use this plan, but without one you lose access to all logs and reports. You can’t configure the filters in this plan. This primarily filters porn and proxy/anonymizing sites. Family Shield - This plan lets you use OpenDNS servers in their default filtering configuration.OpenDNS has three plans targeted at home users: You can also choose specific domains to block or allow to enhance or override the OpenDNS standard filters. These filters include pornography, drugs, gaming, academic fraud, and many other categories. Using these categories, you can filter the servers that computers can connect to after setting your computers (or your router) to use OpenDNS. OpenDNS maintains a database that categorizes domain names. By default, they usually start with the DNS servers specified by your Internet Service Provider (ISP), but most devices allow you to change your DNS servers. DNS maps names to IP addresses to make services like websites much easier to remember.Ĭomputers that connect to the Internet use DNS servers to locate the sites and services they are connected to. Domain Name System, or DNS, is the system that assigns names to IP addresses. Configuring security and advanced featuresīefore I address what OpenDNS is, let’s briefly discuss what DNS is.
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