OpenDNS FamilyShield - Web Content Filtering for ALL Your Gadgets
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We at FamilyMint love online technology, and we love that our kids love it too. However, the Internet isn't safe for kids to just go roaming about anywhere, so we're big fans of parental control solutions. And we're huge fans of parental control solutions that are both very effective and free. One such solution is OpenDNS. With more than 30,000,000 users and 40,000 schools using it (more than 1% of all internet users), it's very popular for good reasons. One of the biggest reasons (well, the biggest reason in our eyes) is the built-in parental control features that protect ANY AND ALL devices in your house that connect to the internet through your home wireless router. There are other good solutions for just your computers (such as K9 Web Protection, another free solution), but no others that we know of that also provide protection for your tablets, Kindles, iPods, iPads, Androids, gaming consoles, or any other gadget.
The way OpenDNS works is simple. You make a quick change to the settings of your home router, and after this all your internet traffic will be routed through the OpenDNS servers. Turn on Web Content Filtering in your OpenDNS account, tell it what level of filtering your want (High, Medium, Low, None, or Custom) and immediately all your connected devices will be protected from content in 26 risk categories including alcohol, dating, drugs, gambling, and of course much more.
After this, if any device (computer, tablet, iTouch, etc.) tries to browse to a site that is not allowed, you, your kids, your kids friends, etc. will see a warning message on that device instead of the offending internet site.
Here's a short description from the OpenDNS folks:
Setting up OpenDNS to secure all of your new devices is as simple as making sure OpenDNS is set up on your router. If you're already using OpenDNS on your router, you'll instantly see the benefits on your new devices. OpenDNS settings will apply to the new gadgets whether you're using OpenDNS simply for fast and reliable DNS or if you're also using Parental Controls.
It's easy to addParental Controlsfor these new these devices if you now need to block content. As always, there's no additional software to install and it's completely free to protect additional devices.To add Parental Controls for the new gadget on your home network, you'll just need to first make sure OpenDNS is set up your home router. Then, simplylog into your Dashboard, select your home network, and enable the filtering settings of your choice. In just a few clicks, all of your new toys will be protected and you can get back to enjoying them!
FamilyMint doesn't earn anything from OpenDNS nor do we have any kind of relationship with them. We've just found their service to be great for parents with kids that use technology and we wanted to share it with you.
Setting up OpenDNS to secure all of your new devices is as simple as making sure OpenDNS is set up on your router. If you're already using OpenDNS on your router, you'll instantly see the benefits on your new devices. OpenDNS settings will apply to the new gadgets whether you're using OpenDNS simply for fast and reliable DNS or if you're also using Parental Controls.
