OpenDNS

I've been using OpenDNS as a content filter at my house for six months or so, it's easy and works pretty well. From time to time I'll run across a site I don't think should be blocked but is. For the most part I can live with the false positives... Well today I find they are blocking http://youtube.com. Unfortunately that's the breaking point for me, so now I'm on the hunt for a good, easy and free replacement.

Anybody got a good solution?

Comments

[John Roberts]

We added Youtube to a global whitelist earlier today, and will be talking with St. Bernard Software about the addition of Youtube.com to the "adult themes" category.

Did you try the whitelist feature?

Have you had this problem before? Adult themes is the one category I would never use, personally. It's accurate, but VERY restrictive.

John Roberts
OpenDNS

[Matthew Irvine]

I really think it's cool that John Roberts responded to your post - that says something great about OpenDNS.

Seriously though, it's easy. Login to your dashboard, click settings, then click "Manage Whitelist." Add youtube.com, and you'll never have the problem again.

And, you won't have to leave OpenDNS.

ScrubIT.com also does the content filtering, but I've found them to be slow, and they offer no whitelist feature at all.

[Ed Buford]

I have twin sons who are seven years old. I use OpenDNS to keep the adult stuff from finding its way to little eyes who should never see such stuff. Honestly, I like the fact that I don't have to deal with it either.

OpenDNS does a good job... and now that I've got a better handle on the whitelist thing I think I'll keep it.
Thanks everyone!

[Mark Bellos]

Keep in mind, John Roberts responded to this post probably because he uses Google Alerts (http://www.google.com/alerts) to get an email notification of anyone who even mentions the keyword “OpenDNS”. I’m quite suspicious of all the self-proclaimed “professional bloggers” who keep touting their service. Their white list feature will solve your problem, but the question you should be asking yourself is why is their service free? Are the domain lookup statistics reported to a 3rd party? Is it just another excuse to push ads (and perhaps spyware) in your face, no different than other “free services” like digg or myspace? and will it still be free in the future? or might certain functions become pay-per-use? It would be “fun” to find your DNS stops working or working differently all of the sudden when they decide to kick in the pay option, much like they decided to start blocking youtube.com all of the sudden. Keep your DNS internal, or at least between you and your ISP. The only thing you’ve accomplished is created another point of failure by depending on an external service provider.

[Ed Buford]

First I’d like to say that I’m really Behind what OpenDNS is doing. It’s a great solution and I’m going to continue to support it. I’m using this as a easy content filter for my home. I like it because it is free and easy. If the day comes that it becomes a pay for, I’ll still recommend it to small businesses that I talk to. However I’ll find another free and easy solution.
Secondly, any company who will set up Google alerts to better try to serve their clients must be client oriented…. From where I stand that’s great! If more companies showed the same level of concern about their products life would be better.
I’m pretty sure I have an adequate knowledge to handle troubleshooting DNS on my home network, and will continue to offer folks great solutions like OpenDNS when I get the opportunity.
Thanks for stopping by