You may find that, using your ISP’s DNS (Domain Name Servers), sites can take a while to load. OpenDNS is the answer to that! From the mouth of OpenDNS, “OpenDNS is the world’s leading provider of Internet navigation and security. Make your network safer, faster, smarter and more reliable without the cost and complexity of traditional security services.” OpenDNS also has “typo correction”, in which, if you were to type craigslist.og, it’d automatically redirect you to craigslist.org. It also has a phishing site blocker, which wouldn’t let you go to any sites known to be fraudulent. One of the other many features is that, from the control panel online, you can configure it to block different categories of sites (so maybe you want pornography and social networking sites blocked, and it gets done!), even better, it won’t let you through to proxies, so you can’t bypass it!

Step 1

To start, go to https://www.opendns.com/start. The free version should be fine for basic use, so click “Sign up”.

Step 2

Type in your details, and you’re almost done!

This screen will come up:

Step 3

As it says, it’d be the best option to set it up on your router. Click that, and then the manufacturer of the router, follow the instructions, and you should be good to go. If you don’t have a router, or would prefer to use your computer, click the Computer button and follow the instructions there. You can also view the article here.

Step 4

If you ever want to check that OpenDNS is active, just go here or visit http://www.opendns.com/welcome. If there is a tick, then it means it’s all working, otherwise, you may need to restart, or follow what it says on the page.

Enjoy your faster, safer internet connection!