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In my last post, I touched a little bit on the use of openDNS as a content filter solution. I did receive some feedback asking for more information. So I thought it would be appropriate to dedicate one post to openDNS and its features.

Some non IT people are probably asking “What the heck is content filtering?” Content Filtering is the processing in which you can filter the websites that can be viewed over the internet. For example, blocking websites of a pornographic nature.

To understand how openDNS works, you must first understand how DNS works. First of all, every web server on the internet is assigned an IP address. All computers on the internet that access these web servers also have an IP address. An IP address is like a phone number for the computer (its like 192.168.1.1). Instead of having to memorize all of these numbers when you want to go to google (which IP address is 74.125.127.100 by the way) or another site we use domain names(like google.com). DNS servers are the servers that translate google.com into 74.125.127.100. So if there wasn’t a DNS server specified your computer wouldn’t know where to go when you typed in google.com.

So how does openDNS work? OpenDNS allows you to use their DNS servers by either specifying it on your server, router, or home computer. After that, you can go to openDNS’s website (http://ww.opendns.com) and sign up for an account. After you are signed up you will be able to add a network to your account. You will have to be at a computer on the network that you want to use. So if your at home, you would naturally have to be at your home computer. OpenDNS will automatically detect your IP address and ask if you want to add that network. When you add it, openDNS will be able to control your DNS use.

OpenDNS allows you to select from many different categories of websites to block and with the help of St. Bernard (makers if iPrism) they have a very large database of adult websites that can be blocked. If you don’t want to block by category that is fine. OpenDNS will also allow you to block by individual websites.
So what do you if you want to block all social networking sites but allow access to facebook? Well, openDNS also allows you “whitelist” websites and make sure that they are always allowed, even if they are in a category that you have set to block.

So they can block websites, is that all? Absolutely not, OpenDNS has a shortcuts feature that can setup to access frequent websites without typing out the entire address. Let’s say you have a gmail or other webmail account. You can setup openDNS so if you type “mail” in the address bar of your internet browser it will take you to your webmail.
OpenDNS also has a typo feature. I don’t know about you but if I am typing way to fast I tend to type google.cmo rather than google.com. Well, if you have the typo feature turned on OpenDNS will recognize .cmo as a type and automatically change the website so it ends in .com instead.

OpenDNS is constantly coming out with new features and you should defintly go check it out. You don’t even have to block any websites if you just want a more reliable, faster, and functional DNS server.

I would have to say that even though I like the original opening better, this one is quite entertaining.