block ADULT sites and other BAD STUFF on your home network (EASY)

About this video

The creator announces a 14-day family challenge cutting Netflix, Hulu, Roblox, Amazon Prime and other entertainment distractions, then teaches network-wide blocking in part one using OpenDNS. He explains DNS as a lookup from a name like youtube.com to an IP address, demonstrated with nslookup, and argues that pointing a network at a DNS service you control lets you block sites and categories. He creates a free OpenDNS account, chooses the customizable option, and recommends configuring the DNS servers in the home router’s DHCP settings rather than on each device, noting existing leases may take up to 24 hours to refresh and showing ipconfig /release and /renew on Windows to force an update. In the OpenDNS dashboard he adds his home network by its public IP, applies web content filtering around the moderate level, blocks individual domains such as netflix.com (choosing domain-only blocking), enables security options for malware, botnet and phishing protection plus blocking internal IP addresses, customizes the block page, and enables stats and logs to see requests and blocked domains. After waiting for propagation he tests in a private window and shows netflix.com, hulu.com and roblox.com blocked. A planned part two on combining OpenDNS with Pi-hole in Docker to block ads network-wide is only teased, not built in this video.

Key takeaways

• Controlling DNS lets you block a site for the whole network by refusing to resolve its domain
• Set OpenDNS servers in the router’s DHCP settings so all devices inherit them, rather than configuring each device
• OpenDNS filtering works by category and by individual always-block or never-block domain lists
• Enable malware, botnet, phishing and internal-IP blocking, and turn on stats/logs to see blocked attempts
• Changes are not instant: allow minutes for OpenDNS propagation and up to 24 hours for device leases to renew

Episode details: published April 22, 2020 · 17:35 long. Summary written by Self Growth Videos from the episode itself. Business results and any income figures mentioned are NetworkChuck’s own claims, shared for education — they are not typical or guaranteed.

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