If you’re like me, you’re tired of the viruses, malware, spyware, adware and phishing attacks, but these aren’t the only nuisances plaguing our computers – you also have to protect your family against pornography.  Our computers are highly susceptible to many attacks, and the common software packages sold to filter this stuff are simply not doing their jobs.  When we consider protecting our children and teens, however, we encounter a problem – our children’s gaming devices that connect through our home routers such as the iPod Touch, Sony PlayStation 3, Nintendo Wii, Sony PSP Handheld and the Nintendo DSi Handheld are all capable of viewing pornography!  So, any filter we may install on our computers doesn’t filter these devices.  This is why I highly recommend a free product called OpenDNS.

OpenDNS is not software – it’s a filtered Domain Name Server, or DNS server, through which your router accesses the Internet.  When you type an Internet address into your web browser’s address bar, such as matthewlbailey.com, the computer doesn’t know where matthewlbailey.com points and will therefore ask the DNS server.  The DNS server’s job is to translate the human-readable web address into a computer-readable web address like 66.96.147.106, which is called an Internet protocol (IP) address.  Once your computer knows the IP address of a web domain name, it opens the website in your web browser.

So, in order to filter all the above attacks from all the devices within your home that access the Internet, you must set your router to use the OpenDNS servers.  Since most of us have dynamic IP addresses, meaning that our IP addresses change from time to time, you’ll have to download a small program that monitors your IP address and keeps OpenDNS updated.  The installation of this program is only necessary on one computer.  Please keep in mind that your more computer savvy teens may be able to access your router’s settings and/or log into your OpenDNS account and undo any filtering you may have set up.  Make sure that you come up with a new username and password for logging into your router and OpenDNS account that your teens won’t be able to figure out.  You’ll also want to make sure that your web browser isn’t set to remember the username and password for your router settings page or OpenDNS account.

There are paid versions of OpenDNS, but OpenDNS Basic is free and should be more than sufficient for the home user.  Keep in mind that, while OpenDNS is an enterprise class web filter, it doesn’t provide the capability of setting time limits for your children and/or teens.  Though every solution has its pros and cons, I recommend OpenDNS to everyone who wants to protect their family from inappropriate material on the Internet as well as guard against computer viruses, malware and phishing attacks.  While it’s not a complete, full-featured solution, it wasn’t mean’t to be!  It’s a great method of filtering both computers and non-PC devices simply and cheaply.

So, how are you protecting your family?