Internet Content filtering on a budget

When my kids started using a computer on the internet for their homework, I knew it was time to start looking into content filtering.  I have administered enterprise solutions such as WebSense, WatchGuard, as well as some open source Squid proxies, however, every one of these is outside of the household budget or required more equipment and expertise than most households would have or want.  I knew there had to be a better solution.

While on my search, I came across OpenDNS.org.  Ironicaly, I had already been using OpenDNS as my DNS (Domain name services) servers, but had no idea of there additional abilitys.

For those who do not know what DNS is,  DNS is like a phone book for the internet.  All web addresses such as http://www.google.com/ lead to an IP address that looks something like 123.456.789.123.  This is similar to our standard whitepages or yellow pages the phone company leaves on our doorstep once a year.  The Yellow pages list companies by name, and give you a number to call them at.  DNS servers on the internet give your computer the IP address to goto (dial) for a specific web address (company).

OpenDNS.org give you the power to configure what people on your network can look up.  I have tested it and found it to work quite well.  The best part is you can set it up, and forget it.  No updates, no additional hardware, no expencive technical help to set it up.  You have control of what level of blocking you would like ranging from nothing blocked to blocking Adult, illegal, Social Network and Video Sharing sites.

So what's the catch?  This must cost a fortune?  No catch and best of all, it's free!

Setup is simple and very well documented.  You will need to do some minor configuration steps, however, OpenDNS has done a great job of documenting the setup for many different networks.

To get started, goto http://www.opendns.com/start/ and setup a free account.