If you manage a small network at the office or even your home you want to protect employee’s productivity and your child’s nativity. There are many solutions that you can purchase from centralized appliances to software that installed on individual computers.
OpenDNS offers a free, easy-to-use solution. I have used OpenDNS at several locations for quick domain resolution for a couple of years. The advantages of OpenDNS over your ISP DNS servers is that on many occasions the DNS machine at your ISP is most likely a long-forgotten, over-worked box in the corner of the data center. This can slow your web surfing.
In addition to speed, OpenDNS can now also provide content filtering for your network. You go to the OpenDNS.org web site and register for an account. You can then setup your network and filtering options on the site. In addition to filtering, OpenDNS will also track web sites accessed from your network.
Once you have setup your network(s) on the web site you will need to make some changes to your network. The easiest place to make the change is in your DHCP server which will be in your router on small networks. Enter the DNS servers given to you by OpenDNS.
If you have a dynamic IP address, OpenDNS provides a small utility that you can install on a Windows or Mac computer so that OpenDNS can keep track of your changing IP address.
Understand that this is not bullet-proof fix for content-securing your network. A knowledge computer user will know a work-around if they are really intent on finding questionable content on the Internet.