Useful Nerdy Things
Would you like to protect your family (or small business network) from bad stuff on the Internet? Here are a couple of useful (and free) resources toward that end.
OpenDNS
This is the easiest way to do it. Sign up for a free account, set up your home router or your PC to use their DNS servers (there are clear instructions, even a video), download the free OpenDNS updater software to keep track of your IP address and then log in to your new account. You can block phishing and bot net badness as well as selecting to block sites from the following categories:
Academic Fraud Adult Themes Adware Alcohol Auctions Automotive Blogs Business Services Chat Classifieds Dating Drugs Ecommerce/Shopping Educational Institutions File storage Financial institutions Forums/Message boards Gambling Games Government Hate/Discrimination Health Humor Instant messaging Jobs/Employment Lingerie/Bikini Movies Music News/Media Non-profits Nudity P2P/File sharing Parked Domains Photo sharing Podcasts Politics Pornography Portals Proxy/Anonymizer Radio Religious Research/Reference Search engines Sexuality Social networking Software/Technology Sports Tasteless Television Tobacco Travel Video sharing Visual search engines Weapons Webmail
Endian Firewall Community
This one is a little more complicated. This is a free distribution of Linux that you can install onto an older PC and use in place of a little Linksys/Netgear etc. Cable/DSL router. It can block viruses, spam, and a list of web site categories similar to the list above.
OpenDNS
This is the easiest way to do it. Sign up for a free account, set up your home router or your PC to use their DNS servers (there are clear instructions, even a video), download the free OpenDNS updater software to keep track of your IP address and then log in to your new account. You can block phishing and bot net badness as well as selecting to block sites from the following categories:
Academic Fraud Adult Themes Adware Alcohol Auctions Automotive Blogs Business Services Chat Classifieds Dating Drugs Ecommerce/Shopping Educational Institutions File storage Financial institutions Forums/Message boards Gambling Games Government Hate/Discrimination Health Humor Instant messaging Jobs/Employment Lingerie/Bikini Movies Music News/Media Non-profits Nudity P2P/File sharing Parked Domains Photo sharing Podcasts Politics Pornography Portals Proxy/Anonymizer Radio Religious Research/Reference Search engines Sexuality Social networking Software/Technology Sports Tasteless Television Tobacco Travel Video sharing Visual search engines Weapons Webmail
Endian Firewall Community
This one is a little more complicated. This is a free distribution of Linux that you can install onto an older PC and use in place of a little Linksys/Netgear etc. Cable/DSL router. It can block viruses, spam, and a list of web site categories similar to the list above.
