If you are trying to use CleanBrowsing on Comcast Xfinity and it doesn’t seem to be working, the reason might be their Protected Browsing option that prevents any other DNS from working, except their own.
To fix that, go to: https://internet.xfinity.com/network/protected-browsing
And toggle the Protected Browsing to off.
Once changed, wait a few minutes and it should start working. You won’t lose any protection as all our DNS filters also block access to malicious and malware domains.
If you have young kids (well, and if you haven’t), I recommend watching this video by Matt Watson where he describes a ring of pedophiles misusing Youtube to share videos of kids in compromising positions (and in some cases even child pornography):
It is long, but worth a watch. It was already picked up by the media and many companies stopped their Ad Spending on Youtube until it is fixed. However, even if when fix this hole, others will come. So as parents, we have to be careful on what our kids are watching and uploading online. Starting with Youtube.
Many of these videos were actually uploaded by parents without malice. Whenever you are uploading videos online, this is what we recommend:
The other aspect is dealing with kids recording and uploading their own videos.
Stay safe!
A common question we get from customers is how to prevent a new device on the network from bypassing the CleanBrowsing DNS.
Every device, whether it’s a mobile device, laptop, desktop, server, or gaming platform, gives a user the ability to configure a local network configuration. Part of this configuration includes the ability to reset their DNS settings. Yes, depending on how your router is configured this configuration would allow the user to change the networks default DNS configuration.
Read More
If your kids are into gaming like ours, then you are undoubtedly familiar with Nintendo’s Switch gaming device. Like all the other gaming devices, this system introduces an unfettered gateway to the web. Kids can easily access all forms of content, including YouTube. Some families prefer to disable YouTube on their kids devices, and with CleanBrowsing you can do that via the paid plans.
Note: You can limit what users can do on YouTube with our Family free filter. By default it sets YouTube to moderate. Moderate mode is the less strict mode, but blocks access to videos with possible violence, sexuality or adult content. It also blocks comments. Learn More
We just released an update to our Mac agent that allows you to quickly configure your local DNS resolver to the CleanBrowsing IPs. It provides the ability to bind your machines IP to your paid account. This is especially important if you want to apply rules that your machines must comply with, even if they are not on your home network.
You want to download the latest installer from here: https://cleanbrowsing.org/download/CleanBrowsing-1.0.1.dmg
When using CleanBrowsing DNS resolvers you will experience an issue logging into Free Wifi hotspots that require authentication. This happens because the Wifi Hotspot provider is hijacking the DNS, routing the traffic to an authentication page. This will prevent you from making use of the Wifi, or force you to remove the CleanBrowsing DNS resolvers.
The quickest way to address this is to update your DNS via terminal, it’ll save you countless steps navigating the different GUI’s. To assist, we’ve put together a script to help in the process.
Your innocent YouTube-watching child might actually be watching pornography on your smartphone. It’s a disturbing thought for most parents but research shows that it’s not a rarity. In fact, several studies including a research by American Psychological Association found that on average most children have their first exposure to porn before they’re even 13 years old.
We are excited to release a new agent for Apple Machines. This agent allows you to quickly set our Free profiles on any of your desktop / notebook devices.
In addition to supporting DNSCrypt on all of our free filters, we also support DNSCrypt on the custom filters that you can configure on your CleanBrowsing account.
If you don’t have a CleanBrowsing account, you can use it to gain visibility on your DNS activity and customize the type of filtering you need to have on your network:
For the last week or two, a new phishing campaign started to target k-12 schools and universities.
A couple of school IT administrators emailed us asking if we ever saw something like this before, so we think this is a good opportunity to remind everyone to be watchful for those phishing campaigns. Phishing campaigns happen very often and have many variations, but this last one seems to be more mass spread against a large number of schools at the same time.
@cleanbrowsing