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Openns A cloud-based domain name system (DNS) provider provides web filtering and increased protection with various blocked features-and the Opendns Family Shield is its consumer product to protect the entire houses from unfair materials on the Internet. So when it is not a completely ancestral control app, it offers some similar tasks.
The family shield is designed to offer fast, easy parents control -the kind of product parents can set it once and forget about it, knowing that it will block adult materials on all devices. It is easy to use, but it does not include adaptation.
Opendns also has a free product called Opendns Home, which allows parents to adapt their web filtering and see basic use statistics. It is more involved, but is complicated to install.
Since 2015, Opendns has been part of the Cisco organization, so there is no lack of cloud computing and cyber security knowledge that underlines this tool.
Plan and pricing
The family shield leaves for a pleasant start – as it is completely independent, such as adaptable home products.
Despite that free position, the family shield contains unlimited number of equipment, and unlike the free home product – does not require an account to use, which requires an account construction to use its adaptation capabilities.
features
The family shield is independent, then, but what does it do? Simply put, this is a pre -Vimochan web filter that you can set on your router, PC, smartphone or server. Once it becomes configured, it potentially blocks harmful traffic.
The best way to use openns is to set it to your router – in this way, it will filter all the traffic going through your router, whether it is phone, game console, laptop or something.
The pre -filter of the family shield blocks the material in four categories: pornography, tasteless, proxy/anonymous, and sexuality. You will really find everything that you do not want to see your children within those four categories. On top of it, the Opendns Family Shield also blocks fishing sites and other potentially dangerous websites.
The filter works very well, and the fact that it works on the router means that it works in a wide range of equipment compared to most parents control devices.
However, keep in mind that more traditional tools such as Qustodio or MMGUARDIAN allow you to filter using a broad array of categories.
If you want a comprehensive array of categories or if you want to add your own permissible or blocked sites to the list, then you have to use Opendns Home – a more adaptable product that is slightly more technical.
Once the family shield is configured, there is no dashboard, control panel or app to worry – you apply and work it.
This may not be easy, but it is worth noting that the Opendns Family Shield is a filter, not a traditional ancestral control app, so you remember many features that you will find elsewhere.
For example, you will find screen time control, location monitoring, app blocking or nothing else, for example – because the Opendns Family Shield is not just that kind of product.
If you want them, then you have to detect a free tool from a product paid like Microsoft, Google or Mobipic, or Norton Family Safety, Qustodio or Bark.
Interfaces and uses
The most effective way of using Opendns Family Shield is to set it to your router – in this way, it filters all web traffic that goes through the router through the array of your equipment.
To install a family shield on your router, you have to go to the browser settings of your router and change its DNS settings – those numbers that control it how the web traffic flows through the router. Once those settings are saved, the web traffic is rooted through the filter of openns, which means improper sites are blocked.
This process will probably be almost the same for most routers, but Opendns offers dozens of useful guides with pictures for many common models.
This is very good, although people who are not technically intelligent can still struggle to mold the OPENDNS family as they are uncertain about delaying routers or device networking settings – and it makes sense perfectly.
If you want to install OpendNS filtering on individual devices like smartphones, it is simply as easy – and it is an effective way to apply filtering on technology that will not always be connected to the Internet through your home router.
On Android and iOS, it is as simple as moving towards network settings and changing DNS configuration. On Windows and McOS, this is a similar process. And for many types of devices, from phone and game console to Linux laptop and Windows device, Opendns offers clear tutorials.
If you want to use Opendns Home instead, the setup is largely the same-and you can use a web-based dashboard to manage your network, replace the filter and see data about network usage.
Help
We have already mentioned the money of the setup guide that you can use with the Opendns Family Shield, and the support is widespread elsewhere. The documentation section is filled with guides that take a deep look at the Opendns technique, and if you want to use the Opendns house, you can fly into the configuration.
The user forum is extremely busy, so obtaining answers to general technical issues should be relatively easy, and there is a ticket-based system to submit support requests. The online report states that the answers are both quick and helpful.
Here is only one thing missing, phone support or live chat, but it is introduced by large organizations with the control app of the parents that have more features. While Opendns is definitely a very large company, the family shield is a relative basic filter instead of the gallbladder control app.
Competition
That situation means weighing the Opends Family Shield with any close rivals – as this web filtering product is unique.
For example, it does a big job of filtering your network, but you will also find excellent filtering in Qustodio and MMGUARDIAN – which is on individual devices. Both of those products, and bark, also offer a broad slate of parents’ control features, even if they are paid for the products.
And if you want to control parents without paying a penny, do shopping around: Microsoft is the basic filtering in both security and Google family links, and Qustodio offers a free parents control app for single-device monitoring.
final call
There is no doubt that the Opendns Family Shield is an excellent web filter. When applied to your router, it will do a tremendous job of blocking improper traffic in every device in your home – and for free to all.
When used on smartphones and laptops, it will block the same websites when children are using other networks, and Opendns is an ideal next step for home optimization if you are comfortable with more technical setup and adaptation.
Beyond the filter, however, the Opendns Family Shield is too low to offer as it is not a full parent control suit.
If you are happy to use a filter on your network, then the family shield is an independent and effective option. But if you want parents control features such as location tracking, screen time restrictions and app control, then you have to look else else – and perhaps some money will also have to be spent.
