How to Block Inappropriate Content on Your Family WiFi Network - For FREE
Parents, do you know what your kids are looking for? This is a snapshot of their actual search queries: “How to watch **** if my parents have parental controls on my phone”:
How to block harmful content on your family WiFi network to protect your children?
DNS-filtering services like OpenDNS.com and Cleanbrowsing.org can offer you a first layer of defense in your parental controls system. You will need other “weapons” to protect your kids, but DNS is a shield. Best part: basic level of protection (sufficient for most families) you can do yourself, and for free. Just set it and forget it.
What it is
DNS (Domain Name System)
What it does
DNS translates domain names to IP addresses which Internet runs on – it’s an address book for the Internet. DNS is the naming of the network.
As of 2021, Internet Protocol version 4 (IPv4) is replaced by some providers with Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) to accommodate the growing number of IP addresses in the world. Check which protocol your Internet provider uses so you know if you need to change DNS settings to IPv4 or IPv6 IP addresses.
How it is used
Family-friendly DNS servers won’t map inappropriate DNS names, breaking the connection to disreputable web pages. You need to change the default settings on your router to take advantage of this.
Pros
- You can set it up yourself for FREE on your router
- Blocks adult content automatically on every device in your network
- Likely to increase your Internet connection speed
- Blocks phishing sites
Cons
- None to prevent you from setting it up as the first layer of (free) parental controls security
- May filter out bad websites but not bad content from apps
- Can be bypassed by tech-savvy kids, so it needs to be supplemented with other layers of parental controls
IPv4 OpenDNS IP addresses:
- 208.67.222.123
- 208.67.220.123
CleanBrowsing:
- 185.228.168.168
- 185.228.169.168
For IPv6 OpenDNS, use these instructions.
IPv6 OpenDNS IP addresses:
- 2620:119:35::35
- 2620:119:53::53
How to set up OpenDNS on your family WiFi network
- Login into your WiFi router by either opening the router’s browser-based utility of your ISP (Internet Service Provider, such as https://myfiosgateway.com) or typing router IP address into a Web browser. A default IP address of the router can be found under Network connection details listed as “IPv4 Default Gateway” and would look like this: 192.168.1.1. Type it into your web browser, and login with administrator username and password – typically listed by your ISP on the router itself. It’s a good idea to change the password as default passwords are easily found online.
- In the router settings, access DNS settings: OpenDNS device configuration by router can be found here. The default will be that the WiFi router gets DNS settings from its NAT (Network Address Translation) server.
- Manually set the Primary and Secondary DNS IP addresses to the OpenDNS IP addresses for Family Shield: 208.67.222.123 and 208.67.220.123.
- Save this configuration into your WiFi router.
Result: No device using your WiFi network will be able to access inappropriate web pages. Family Shield is configured at the server level to block 4 categories: Pornography, Tasteless, Proxy/Anonymizer, and Sexuality.
I asked Umbrella tech support (the company in charge of OpenDNS) to provide the most up-to-date setup instructions (as of 2023):
https://support.opendns.com/
hc/en-us/articles/227988127- Configuring-OpenDNS-on-your- Network https://support.opendns.com/
hc/en-us/categories/204012907- OpenDNS-Device-Configuration
Basically, for the less technical of us who would rather not mess with router settings, OpenDNS provides an easier way to open an online account and register your IP address with them to filter traffic on your network.
