As parents, we all want to keep our kids safe. When they ride their bicycles, we have them wear a helmet to avoid nasty falls. We teach them to never speak to strangers and we have them look both ways when they cross the street. Raising children is a hard job, and often times, it takes more than just two parents to do so–it takes an entire community.

With the rise of the Internet and children becoming more technologically savvy, parents have to be on-guard against nefarious websites that are set up to either damage the family computer or may cause direct harm to your child. Many machines comes with anti-virus software right out of the box, but how do you protect your child from going to those websites that have malicious software or pornography without expensive or difficult to set up software?

The fine folks at OpenDNS are here to help with their FamilyShield product. Here’s how it works:

1. FamilyShield works at the DNS level, where domain names are mapped to corresponding IP addresses. OpenDNS keeps a database of offending websites and incorporates it into their products.

  • Adult websites that are unsuitable for kids
  • Proxy and anonymizer sites commonly used by savvy kids to bypass traditional Web filters
  • Phishing sites that aim to trick you into handing over personal or financial information
  • Some virus-spreading malware websites
So, if you have one of those children who are a little smarter than their parents when it comes to using the net and getting around site blockers, FamilyShield is one step ahead of them. If you notice, the last bullet-point states that SOME malware sites will be blocked. The reason for this is that there are so many malicious websites erected daily that even fully staffed anti-virus companies have a difficult time keeping up.
To begin using FamilyShield on your shared family PC, head over to the FamilyShield website and follow their step-by-step instructions (don’t worry, there are pictures!) http://www.opendns.com/home/familyshield
You may notice that there are instructions for both routers and PC’s, we suggest that you use the product on the PC and the regular OpenDNS service on the router.
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