[Windows]: How to Use OpenDNS on Your Router, PC, Tablet, or Smartphone

How to Use OpenDNS on Your Router, PC, Tablet, or Smartphone

Most home networks rarely have one single type of client connecting to it. Usually, there’s a blend of Windows, Android, iOS, and maybe even Macs. How do you keep all these clients connected while keeping younger users out of trouble?

We’ve talked about OpenDNS in past articles and just recently, we discussed the possibilities of using your router for basic parental controls. In that article, we mentioned that our example router actually defers to OpenDNS as its designated “parental controls”.

Using the router doesn’t always turn out to be an effective solution if the problem is with Internet access. While you can block keywords and domains, you will quickly find out that controlling that is akin to the time-worn analogy of the finger the dike. You may be able to block a couple problem websites at first, you’re going to need something much more robust and enveloping to really get the job done.

The nice thing with OpenDNS is, you can do web filtering at the router, or you can assign it to individual clients. This means, as a grownup, that you don’t have to deal with a neutered Internet experience.

Today, we’re going to show you exactly how to do that and then configure your Windows, Mac, Android, and iOS clients to take advantage of the change.

A Brief Reintroduction to OpenDNS

You may be wondering how this works, and it’s really very simple. First go to OpenDNS.com and create an account for their parental controls. We choose OpenDNS Home, which takes only a few minutes to set up and is completely free.

All they really need is some basic information, however, they may prompt you for more. When you’re done creating an account, you will need to confirm via the email address you provided.

The next screen you encounter will explain to you how to change your DNS for various clients and access points on your network.

Instructions for changing your DNS on your router, PC, server, and even mobile devices are available. We’ll go ahead and quickly show you how to do all that in the coming sections.

Changing Your DNS

You have two configuration options on your home network. You can change the DNS on your router, which is the main connection point to and from the Internet.

This has the advantage of covering everything in an umbrella of protection. This is also its disadvantage because every computer behind the router must then use the same router settings unless you specifically assign a client to use another DNS server.

Another disadvantage is that there’s no way to tell, at least with the free version of OpenDNS, where the traffic is coming from, so if you see a bunch of blocked websites, it could be you, it could be your spouse, it could be your children, or anyone else who comes over and connects to your network.

Preferred Method: Configuring Your Router

Nevertheless, the preferred method to using OpenDNS is to configure your router to direct all DNS request through their servers.

We’re going to explain the basic method for changing your router’s DNS. You should most definitely check out the guide corresponding guide for your router when it’s time to set yours up, especially if it’s not immediately apparent how to do so.

In general though, this is what you should expect when configuring your router. First access your router’s configuration panel by opening it in your preferred web browser. We covered this in Lesson 2, so if you’re unsure how to do this, we recommend reading it.

Once you’ve got your router open, you want to locate where you can input different DNS servers. OpenDNS’s primary DNS server is 208.67.222.222 and their secondary server is 208.67.220.220. In the screenshot below, we see where we enter that on our router.

Once inputted, you will need to save your changes. Depending on your router, it may be an actual “Save” button or it may say “Apply.” Regardless, if you don’t commit your changes, they won’t take effect.

That is all you need to do to your router, all DNS requests will now be routed through OpenDNS, however, you still need to flush your DNS resolver cache and web browser cache.

Clearing Your DNS Resolver Cache on Windows Clients

Open a command prompt on Windows 7 or Windows 8.1 by opening the Start menu or Start screen, respectively, and entering “cmd” in the search box. Instead of simply hitting “Enter” though, use “Ctrl + Shift + Enter” to open an administrator command prompt. You will know you have administrator privileges because it will say so in the title bar.

With the command prompt open, type “ipconfig /flushdns” (the command is the same for both Windows 7 and Windows 8.1). You should do this on all your Windows clients, so if your kids each have a computer, you want to flush their DNS caches.

Clearing the DNS Resolver Cache on OS X Clients

To clear the DNS resolver cache on your Mac, you will need open the Terminal.

With the Terminal open, type the appropriate command:

sudo dscacheutil –flushcache (OS X Yosemite)

dscacheutil -flushcache;sudo killall -HUP mDNSResponder (OS X Mavericks)

sudo killall -HUP mDNSResponder (OS X Mountain Lion or Lion)

If you’re using another version of OS X, you should check out this link, which has information for flushing the DNS cache all the way back to OS X 10.3.

Clearing Your Browser History

It will be necessary to also clear any and all caches on whatever browsers you use.

On Windows, you’re most likely using one or more of the three most popular browsers: Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, or Google Chrome. On a Mac, it is often Safari.

Clearing Internet Explorer’s Cache

For Internet Explorer, the most consistent way to do this is to use the Internet Options found in the Control Panel. The first tab is the General settings. Click on “Delete” under Browsing History.

You can wipe everything out in one fail swoop if you like, but the cache data is known here as “Temporary Internet files and website files.” Click “Delete” when you’re ready to clear Internet Explorer’s cache.

Clearing Mozilla Firefox’s Cache

On Mozilla Firefox (as of writing, we’re using version 31), you want to click on the Menu icon and select “History.”

Then choose “Clear Recent History…” from the options near the top of the History Sidebar.

First, select “Everything” in “Time range to clear:” and then you also want to open the “Details” so you can see what is to be deleted. Note in the screenshot, the option you definitely want to select is “cache.”

Click “Clear Now” when you’re ready and Firefox’s cache (and whatever other options you choose) will be deleted.

Clearing Google Chrome’s Cache

When clearing Chrome’s cache, open the menu and select “History” from the list. Alternately, you can use “Ctrl + H”.

On the resulting History screen, click “Clear browsing data…” to delete the cache.

We want to “obliterate” browsing data from “the beginning of time.” Make sure you’ve have selected “Cache images and files” from the list. The rest is up to you.

Once you’re ready to commit, click “Clear browsing data” and everything in the cache will be wiped clean.

Clearing Safari’s Cache

Simply open the Safari’s preferences (the fastest way to do this is to use “Command + ,”) and then click on the “Privacy” tab.

Click “Remove All Website Data…” and then “Remove Now” on the subsequent screen.

Alternative Method: Configuring Individual Clients

The other option for an OpenDNS configuration is to change each client in your network, or you can change the DNS on your router, and Mom and Dad can configure their own computer with their ISP’s DNS server settings, or they can use Google’s public DNS servers (8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4), to access the Internet unfettered.

Changing DNS Servers on Windows Computers

That said, we’re going to show you how to configure Windows clients with OpenDNS’s settings. On Windows 7 and Windows 8.1, the routes and ends are the same. We’ll show you the screenshots from Windows 8.1.

Both Windows systems should have an icon of the network to which you are connected in the lower-right corner of the taskbar. Right-click on that network icon, in this screenshot, it’s a wired connection but on your computer it may be a Wi-Fi bars.

Regardless of your network connection adapter, you want to choose “Open Network and Sharing Center” and then choose “Change adapter settings” on the left-hand side.

When the adapter screen opens, you want to right-click on your network adapter (you will probably only have one, and it will probably be a Wi-Fi connection) and then choose “Properties.” In the following screenshot, our wired connection “Eth0” has a great many items attributed to it but the one we want to affect should be at or near the bottom.

Select “Internet Protocol Version 4 (TCP/IPv4) from the list and then choose “Properties” underneath it.

You now find yourself on your adapters IPv4 properties screen where you can input your custom DNS settings. Select “Use the following DNS server addresses” and you can then input OpenDNS’s servers, or you can input your ISP’s DNS servers for an adult-friendly alternative configuration.

In the following screenshot, you see how this looks with an OpenDNS configuration.

When you’re finished, click “OK” and while you’re at it, go about the processes we discussed previously for flushing the DNS cache and browser cache(s). At this point, any computers using the OpenDNS’s servers can thus be filtered and logged.

Alternatively, click the “Advanced…” button, then the “DNS” tab.

On the DNS tab, you can then “Add” DNS servers and order them in order of use using the green arrows on the right side of the tab.

Changing DNS Servers on a Mac

Like Windows clients, OS X will assume you want to use your router’s DNS servers unless otherwise specified. To change the DNS servers on OS X, open Spotlight (“Command + Space”) and then choose the Network system preferences.

On the resulting windows, choose your Wi-Fi (or LAN) connection and then click “Advanced” in the bottom-right corner.

Once the advance settings are open, you want to click the “DNS” tab, and just like on Windows clients add OpenDNS servers using the + button.

Click “OK” to save your new settings and return to the Network system preferences.

Changing DNS Servers on an Android Device

To change the DNS servers on an Android device, open your Wi-Fi settings and long-press on your connection.

Choose “modify network” from the two choices.

On the next screen, tap “show advanced options.”

In the advanced options, scroll down to the DNS servers and change them to OpenDNS’s (or Google’s) servers.

Click “Save” and you’re finished.

Changing DNS Servers on an iOS Device

If you use an iPhone or iPad, you too can change your DNS servers. Open your device’s WiFi settings and tap the blue “i” next to your connection.

In your connection’s settings screen, simply change your DNS servers. Since most DNS has two servers, you’d want to separate them with a comma, in order of preference (DNS 1, DNS 2).

Finally, tap the “Wi-Fi” back button and you’re finished. Your iPhone or iPad will now use the assigned DNS when it connects to your connection via Wi-Fi.

A Quick Overview of Free OpenDNS

When you first access OpenDNS, you’ll need to add your home network. If you’re connecting from a computer from within your network, your IP address will be shown at the top. Go to the Settings tab to add your network.

You also want to take a moment to set your web content filtering level. Filtering is spread across three levels in 26 categories. Click “View” to view the categories and “Customize” to add or remove categories to create custom filtering levels.

If you are happy with the level of filtering but there’s a site or two that you don’t want your kids to access, you can add them specifically to the filter.

Once you select a filter, it should take about three minutes for the changes to take effect. Thereafter, when your kids visit something blocked by OpenDNS, they’ll see a screen similar to this.

In addition to the OpenDNS’s filters, there’s a great many other options you can investigate, but before we conclude today, we want to touch upon the “Stats” features found in OpenDNS. You might be happy with the way OpenDNS filters web content and if so, that’s great. But if you want to know what kind of traffic is going in and out of your network, you’ll want to take a glance at network stats.

Stats can be shown for a range of dates, whether it’s the most recent week, or a whole month, you can look at requests and see what websites your clients are visiting. You can even download a copy of the log or output to a printer.

OpenDNS gives you a relatively barebones approach to parental controls – filtering and logging – but that may be enough for many families. When combined with other methods, other parental controls methods for example, it can really wrap your network in a tight protective cocoon.

Even if you use your system’s baked-in parental controls, OpenDNS is nice to have as a backup filtering and monitoring layer, especially if you have devices on your home network that use your Internet connection such as tablets and phones.

With all that aside, let’s hear from you. Is OpenDNS something you would use or are you an OpenDNS expert? Talk to us in the discussion forum and let us know what you think.

[Windows]: How to Use Parental Controls on Windows 7

How to Use Parental Controls on Windows 7

Without some layer of protection, your kids are exposed to all kinds of risks and dangers online. Even using the basic security features offered on your router, you probably aren’t doing as much as you could, which is where Windows parental controls come into play.

Microsoft began offering parental control with Windows Vista and has gradually improved them with each new version. Windows 7’s parental controls are pretty basic, but they’re effective and much better than having nothing at all. Plus, they can be used in conjunction with something like OpenDNS to filter websites and online activity.

That’s the kind of peace of mind you need and using parental controls is a great way to at least stay on top of what’s going on within your home network. In this article, we’re going to talk briefly about implementing user accounts correctly, and then we’ll detail the parental controls baked into Windows 7.

The Importance of User Accounts

You want to always make sure that every user has their own account, and they’re assigned the right type of account. For example, you don’t want your kids to have administrator accounts, they should definitely have standard accounts, which prevent users from installing applications and making changes to settings without admin privileges.

Use Administrator Accounts with Care

When you first set up your primary Windows profile, it will be an administrator account. Thereafter, you will always have at least one administrator account on your computer.

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The administrator account is akin to having root access, meaning anyone with administrator privileges can do whatever they want: install software, change settings, and generally mess things up if care is not exercised. To that end, your administrator account should be minimally used and well protected by a nice, strong password.

We recommend you use your admin account to install all the software you want on your system, and for everything else, use a standard account. From hereon, if you need to make any changes, such as installing a new application, you can elevate your standard account briefly by entering your admin password.

Standard Accounts for Day-to-Day Use

Standard accounts are like admin-lite. Standard accounts let you use the computer normally but if you want to change security settings or make changes that will affect other users, you will need to provide an administrator’s password. Standard accounts also prevent you from making mistakes, such as deleting important system files.

In order to use a standard account, you first need to create or convert one to an administrator account. It’s not a terribly difficult process, but we have a nice little how-to on it if you need some help.

For example, maybe you created two administrator accounts but, upon reading this, you decide you only want one. You can open the User Accounts control panel and convert any administrator account to a standard one, and vice-versa. When all is said and done, we recommend using a standard account for day-to-day use.

Guest Accounts for Temporary Visitors

A guest account isn’t something you’ll personally use, and your family members should all have proper standard accounts secured with passwords. But, if you have a temporary house guest, or simply need to let someone access your computer to use the Internet, then they can use the guest account. In the end, you shouldn’t leave the guest account enabled, so remember to turn it off if you don’t need it.

Tying Accounts to Parental Controls

Before we talk about Windows 7’s parental controls, we need to explain how to assign accounts so that they work with them.
Begin by opening Parental Controls from the Control Panel. In this screenshot, you see that when you open it, your accounts are displayed. You may have many more accounts, perhaps one for each family member. It’s important that you make changes to other accounts using an administrator account.

If you try to do so using a standard account, you’ll be nagged to enter an administrator password each time you want to do anything meaningful. It’s no big deal, but it can be a pain after a while so it’s just easier to do all this as an administrator.

The Parental Controls Included with Windows 7

In Windows 7, when you open the Parental Controls from the Control Panel, you’ll see a list of your accounts. We choose our standard user on our Windows 7 machine and the User Controls screen opens.

The first thing you should do is actually turn on the parental controls, which will allow you to then set up restrictions for games and apps, as well as impose time limits on system use.

If you don’t care about what they look at on the web or you have other means of controlling web access, then this might be enough for you. Alternatively, you could disable the web browser using the “allow and block specific programs” option, but that seems somewhat extreme since most kids use the Internet to conduct research for their academic studies.
The best option outside of installing Family Safety, is to use a monitoring option such asOpenDNS.

Imposing Time Limits on Computer Use

Time limits are great because a chief complaint of many parents is that their kids are always on their computers, sometimes to the detriment of their grades, family relations, and social circles. Regardless, if you want to scale back computer access to any user on your system, time limits are a great way to accomplish that.

Setting up time limits is extremely simple. Choose blocks of time during which you want to prevent access.  For example, in the previous screenshot, we are allowing access during school days and nights, but we will let them play on the computer for a few extra hours on Friday and Saturday nights.

Of course, the time restrictions you implement will depend on your situation and user’s needs but it’s great that you can have this kind of control if necessary. Note, you can only restrict use in hour increments on Windows 7 (on Windows 8.1, you can set up access to half-hour increments).

Game Controls Let You Restrict Gaming

If you have young ones who like video games, it can be difficult to know what they’re playing. A great many games these days are full of violence, profanity, and sexual content which, in a lot of cases, is extremely realistic and graphic.

You can mitigate much of this risk by implementing game controls. Game controls depend upon ratings to work, so if someone tries to install and play a game that isn’t appropriate to your settings, they’re out of luck.

To set the game ratings level, click “set game ratings” and you can choose how strict or loose the restrictions are.

By default, you do this according to the Entertainment Software Ratings Board’s (ESRB) ratings, though you can choose a different ratings system if you prefer. Note, you can also block games that have no rating, which is nice because obviously if a game doesn’t have a rating, it could contain any kind of content.

You can also click “block or allow specific games” for games that you want to override the ratings system you’ve implemented. In the screenshot below, you see you can leave a game to adhere to its rating, or explicitly block or allow specific titles.

Even if you don’t care so much what your older children play, game controls are still a great way to curtail game playing if it’s becoming an issue, like if homework and chores aren’t getting done. You can block those games without having to completely block computer use, which is an effective compromise because homework is often dependent upon Google and Wikipedia.

Setting Restrictions on Unwanted Applications

Finally, Windows 7 will let you limit programs to assigned users, so you can control or flat out stop unauthorized application use, such as the aforementioned web browser block, or block all applications except Word and Chrome, so the focus is on research and writing.

Applying application restrictions is easy enough. Simply enable the option and then select the programs you want to explicitly allow. Once you’re finished, click “OK” and you’ll be returned to the Parental Controls settings screen where you can then review your actions.

The main Parental Controls users screen will now reflect your changes. You now see that user “Matt” is a standard user with parental controls on, has no password set, time and program limits are enabled, and game ratings are set to “Everyone 10+”.

Speaking of Passwords

We like to harp on this, but we’d be remiss if we didn’t remind you that it’s a wise idea to have passwords on all your accounts, even those used by your kids. That standard user “Matt” has no password should be be a big no-no.

How or if you implement a password policy is completely up to you, just remember, if you have a poorly-secured admin account, anyone who accesses that account can change or remove passwords, alter your settings, and install anything they want.

As far as the kids are concerned, passwords are important to not only protect their files, but instill good security habits. Take a moment to check out this article on securing user accounts and passwords in Windows if you want to learn more.

Stick with it, or Upgrade

Compared to many popular parental controls packages available nowadays, the ones on Windows 7 are admittedly Spartan, but they get the job done, especially if your requirements are basic, or you use them in tandem with your router’s security features, or with OpenDNS.

If you do require something with more powerful features, then you’ll want to use thedownloadable Family Safety package, which probably begs the question, why not just use Family Safety in the first place?

For one, the parental controls in Windows 7 are local, so you don’t have to use a web browser to implement them. Family Safety defers to an online interface, which requires an Internet connection to view reports and stats, change settings, add users, and more. Also, for many users, Family Safety might be a little overkill, so Windows 7’s parental controls may be sufficient.

If you use or are planning to install Windows 8.1 (or the upcoming Windows 10), then you have no choice, Family Safety is standard. This isn’t a bad thing, Family Safety is actually a really effective product. Unfortunately, it is a subject in and of itself and best left for an upcoming article.

In the meantime, we’d like to continue to hear from you on your thoughts and feelings on how to best safeguard your family. Please click over to our discussion forum and feel free to leave a comment.

[Windows] : How to Import / Export Contacts Between Outlook and Gmail

How to Import / Export Contacts Between Outlook and Gmail

You can use Microsoft Outlook with just about any e-mail account. If you use something like Gmail or Yahoo! Mail, you’ve probably amassed quite a few contacts, which will need to be imported into Outlook to make it immediately useful.

Similarly, if you use Outlook already for e-mail and you have been managing your contacts with it, then you will be missing out on your changes if you use your e-mail’s native interface, typically in a browser window.

You can enter each contact one by one, but we recommend importing your contacts in one go, whether that is to or from another e-mail client like Thunderbird, or a web-based e-mail account like Gmail or Yahoo! Mail. In this article, we’ll demonstrate how to first export your contacts from Gmail into Outlook, and then export from Outlook into Gmail.

Importing Contacts from Gmail into Outlook

To begin, first click on “Mail -> Contacts” in your Gmail inbox.

Next, click the “More” button and choose “Export…” from the dropdown selections.

Notice, you can export a group, selected contacts, or all your contacts into one of three formats. The export format should be an Outlook .CSV (CSV = Comma Separated Values, which means each field [Name, Address, Phone, etc.] is separated by a comma) file.

Note, you can open this exported .CSV file in Excel and manipulate it you like, such as adding addresses, phone numbers, e-mail addresses, and other information that will help round out your address book.

While this is an optional step, it’s nice to be able to go through and make your contacts neat and consistent.

When you’re ready, it’s time to import your shiny new contacts file into Outlook. Click on “File” and then “Import/Export.”

On the Open screen, click “Import/Export” and you’ll be shown a wizard dialog. You want to choose “Import from another program or file” and click “Next.”

Now, choose “Comma Separated Values” and click “Next.”

You’ll then be asked to browse for the file you want to import. Under options, you can decide whether or not you want duplicates to be imported.

We select “do not import duplicate items,” and click “Next.”

The following screen will ask you to select a destination folder, which should be your Outlook contacts.

Go ahead and click “Finish” on the last screen and your contacts will be imported into Outlook. You can see your results by opening the People mode.

Now, you can go through and edit to your heart’s content such as adding images, mailing addresses, secondary phone numbers, and any other bits of information you think are important and relevant.

Exporting Contacts from Outlook into Gmail

If you want to copy your Outlook contacts over to your Gmail account, it is similar to the preceding process.

In Outlook, click on “File -> Import/Export.”

When the import/export wizard opens, select “export to a file” and then click “Next.”

On the proceeding screen, we want to select “Comma Separated Values” and click “Next.”  This is going to give us a .CSV file just like when we exported our contacts in the last section.

Choose your contacts on the next screen. You might have to scroll through to find them, but they should be under your main e-mail account.

This last screen shows you what’s about to happen (“Export ‘Contacts’ from folder: Contacts”) and offers you the opportunity to map any custom fields you might have created in Outlook.

What does this mean? Simply, some of the fields in your Outlook address book might not match the destination you’re importing to, which means you’ll need to “map” them. As the dialog explains, you need to drag the Outlook value right, to the field that most closely resembles it.

Chances are you probably won’t need to mess with this, but it’s good to know in case you import your Outlook contacts and end up with mismatched fields. Regardless, when you’re ready to make the conversion, click “Finish” on the previous screen.

Now that you’ve got your .CSV file with all your contacts in it, it’s time to import into Gmail. Again, if you want open this up in Excel and do some quick editing, this is your chance.

When you’re ready, in Gmail, click on the “Mail” dropdown menu and select “Contacts.”

On the contacts screen, click the “More” button and select “Import…” from the selections.

Click “Choose File” on the import contact screen.

The open dialog appears; you know the drill, choose your .CSV file in its save location and click “Open.”  When you’re back at the import contacts screen, click “Import.”

Your newly imported contacts won’t be merged into your main contacts – at least not in Gmail – instead they’ll get their own group.

If you click on your imported contacts, you’ll be able to merge them and delete duplicates. It might take a little time to clean them all up but if things are a total mess, then you can always remove your imported contacts, return to Outlook, and perform the process again, this time either using the map fields function or Excel to fix the problems.

Regardless, you now have an address book full of contacts that you can immediately start e-mailing. That said, this is a one-time deal, meaning that when you start making changes to one e-mail client or service, the other won’t reflect them. If this is an ongoing issue, and you use Gmail, you might consider something like GO Contact Sync Mod, which we’ll explain in an upcoming article.