Insomnic Dreams

The How-To Geek has an excellent article explaining how to use OpenDNS to filter your Internet content. Let’s do a quick check on OpenDNS and then we’ll explain why you might want to filter your Internet access.

First let’s explain what DNS is and I’ll try not to be too boring since the details are relatively technical. Every website has two addresses; one for computers to read and one for humans to read. Humans see and use www.howtogeek.com, which is the domain name, to go to a website and computers see and use 208.43.115.82, which is the IP address for howtogeek.com. The Domain Name Service (DNS) is like a phonebook and keeps track of which numbers (208.43.115.82) go to which domains (www.howtogeek.com). So humans type in www.howtogeek.com into the browser and the DNS translates that into 208.43.115.82 which the computer can then use to find its way through the Internet to get you to the website. You can see that this is a pretty important function of Internet usage – and unfortunately still really boring for non-geeks.

Normally, your Internet provider takes care of providing this as a basic function of you Internet service. OpenDNS is a free way of getting the same information but with a bit of a bonus. OpenDNS provides extra features. It’s more like an operator than a phone book. Here are some of their free services:

• Typo Correction – If you misspell a common address it fixes it for you (google.cm automatically corrected to google.com)
• 404 Replacement – If you type an address that isn’t found you get a search results page instead of just a “Page not found” error page which might direct you to the site you want.
• Shortcuts – You can setup keywords that automatically resolve to addresses
• Large Cache – Large directory and frequently updated (basically means the “phonebook” is huge and updated regularly with new additions and updates)
• Filtering – Block aspects of Internet use

All of those services are free and not provided by the DNS service you are getting from your ISP. The details of which are explained in more detail on their website but I wanted to talk about the filtering the How-To Geek explains in his article.

There is one reason to filter Internet content and that is for security (social, moral, technical, or legal sense). Lets go over what OpenDNS provides as a filtering service and I think you’ll see how it can be useful.

• Content Filtering- This provides filtering based on website content. You can choose from 30+ categories such as Auctions, Adware, Chat, P2P/Filesharing, Games, Forums, Gambling, Shopping, etc. This is very useful for limiting what people in your home or even business are allowed to browse.
• Adult Site Blocking – Obviously, this one blocks adult content using a very well maintained black list.
• Domain Blocking- This service allows you to block specific sites. Perhaps you want to allow social networks to be usable, but not MySpace. You would use this service to block just that one site.
• Domain Whitelist – This it the opposite of Domain Blocking. This service would allow you to block all social networks exceptfor MySpace.
• Phishing Protection- Phishing is a tactic used to fake a legitimate website in order to get your information. These sites would look like your bank site but aren’t and once they just use the site to collect your login information.

I think you can see that this service provides a lot of options for making your Internet usage safer for you – especially if you have a family or business. OpenDNS filtering not only provides you with protection from nefarious evil doers online by blocking phishing and adware sites but it can protect your kids from adult content or “too soon” social network usage as well as protect your business from legal issues by blocking file sharing.

I’ve been using OpenDNS for years and find that my Internet usage and experience has benefited from it. I suggest you give it a look and even if it all sounds “too technical”, please check the OpenDNS website and the How-To Geek’s article to see how user friendly they have made their service.

Related posts:

1. Internet For Everyone
2. The How-To Geek
3. FriendFeed: Keeping Track Of Everything Social Even If You Aren’t