Content Filter

Which is an easy way to filter internet content to safeguard kids (for example) against porn etc?

There are some exclusive parental control software applications available for this purpose. And some internet security suites too provide such features. But we need to pay for the good ones. There are some free browser based filters too, which I think lacks flexibility.

So, is there any free and flexible application for this purpose?

I don’t know whether this is the best and you can’t filter individual words too, but still one can give OpenDNS a try.

OpenDNS is a DNS service. It is said to be fast and reliable too. (Why you need another DNS service? Sometimes our default DNS might fail to resolve addresses. For example we might have experienced a situation where our internet works but can not go to specific sites owned by yahoo, google, Microsoft etc. This could be because of DNS issue. With OpenDNS, there is no or less chance for such situations).

This is what company says about them:

“OpenDNS is the leading provider of free security and infrastructure services that make the Internet safer through integrated Web content filtering, anti-phishing and DNS. OpenDNS services enable consumers and network administrators to secure their networks from online threats, reduce costs and enforce Internet-use policies. OpenDNS is used today by millions of users and organizations around the world.”

OK, back to content filtering. OpenDNS offers a decent content filtering service. What we have to do is to route our data through their servers by changing our DNS settings. For that, all we need to do is visit

http://www.opendns.com/

and press ‘Start using OpenDNS. And Press ‘Computer’ in case what we want to configure is our computer (we can configure our mobile, router etc too). They provide very good assistance (plus they have a forum, video tutorial, support and blog too, in case we need more info). Just follow the instructions depending on your Operating System.

If we want to keep things permanent, we need to create an account (free), so that we can add our network and manage accordingly. Once it’s done, all we need to do is go to ‘Settings’ Tab and select the filtering level. It is better we use ‘Custom’ since we have the choice to decide what to filter and what not to filter. If we want to allow or block a particular site, that too is possible.
Once done, press ‘Apply’ and sign-out, its done !

But what if we are using Dynamic IP? That is, the IP that changes every time we switch off and switch on our modem? All we need to do is download a (free) Updater application provided by them and install it. This will take care of the rest by refreshing the IP address automatically.

Last, but not at all the least, READ THE PRIVACY POLICY before you use this service. Just like all other free sites, OpenDNS too collects your IP address. This too uses cookies and collects some basic information. And don’t forget to read the FAQ, when you get time.

Some fun/game applications available with some social networking sites get our consent (when we start using it) even to use the entire content we have with our profile including the photos we upload. So, make it a habit to read the Privacy policy when you are availing any service over internet, irrespective of what it is.

Note:

DNS- Domain Name System. Every site we visit has some numerical address like our street and door number. This is the Internet Protocol Address or IP address. (Here, protocol means a set of standardized communication rules using which data can be sent from one computer to another over internet). It is a difficult task to remember long numbers for every site and hence there is this Name resolving system. For example, when we type http://www.google.com in the browser’s address bar, our DNS server (all of us have one, provided by our Internet Service Provider) translates it into 74.125.19.103 (I think so; it can be a different number for you). If you want to find the IP address of any particular site, do the following, for windows users:

Press Start – Run

You will get a command window. Here, type:

Ping www.google.com (I mean the name of any site you want to check)

Then connection will be established and you can see a message like:

‘pinging www.google.com [74.125.19.103] …

The number we see in brackets is the IP address.

Type ‘exit’ without quotes to come out of the window