DNS Filter for your Network

Servicing: Alternative to OpenDNS | WebTitan | DNSFilter

Decide what type of content is allowed on your network. You can protect kids from adult content, ensure CIPA compliance for schools and libraries, block malicious domains, tailor your network to your users, improve your teams productivity, and so much more.

Learn About Pricing

What is DNS Filtering?

DNS Filtering is a technique used to filter content on a network. It's built on the Domain Name System (DNS) which is the mechanism that allows us to find our favorite websites (e.g., amazon.com, noc.org, etc…), easily. It takes our memory out of the equation.

Leveraging DNS, CleanBrowsing is able to block access to content that does not correspond with the networks acceptable use policy (AUP). It blocks access by stopping the resolution of a domain name (e.g., badexample.com).

We prefer DNS as the technology backbone of our service because it is agnostic to the device and browser being used. DNS is also considered to be part of the fabric of the internet, which means every device that connects to the internet is reliant on it.

The DNS Hierarchy
Type Description Example
Recursive Resolver Recursive DNS nameservers are responsible for providing the proper IP address of the intended domain name to the requesting host. CleanBrowsing
Root Nameserver The authoritative name servers that serve the DNS root zone. Verisign
TLD Root nameserver The authoritative name servers for the Top Level Domain (TLD) – example: .com, .net, .org. Every TLD has a TLD root DNS. ICANN
Authoritative nameserver These servers are the authority on domain names. NOC.org

This is what happens when you try to query badexample.com and you are using the CleanBrowsing DNS Filter:

dig @185.228.168.168 badexample.com 
; <<>> DiG 9.11.5-P1-1ubuntu2.6-Ubuntu <<>> @185.228.168.168 badexample.com
; (1 server found)
;; global options: +cmd
;; Got answer:
;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NXDOMAIN, id: 55102
;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 0, AUTHORITY: 1, ADDITIONAL: 1

;; OPT PSEUDOSECTION:
; EDNS: version: 0, flags:; udp: 512
;; QUESTION SECTION:
;badexample.com. IN A

;; AUTHORITY SECTION:
badexample.com. 3600 IN SOA cleanbrowsing.rpz.noc.org. accesspolicy.rpz.noc.org. 1 7200 900 1209600 86400

;; Query time: 0 msec
;; SERVER: 185.228.168.168#53(185.228.168.168)
;; WHEN: Wed Oct 13 01:34:42 UTC 2021
;; MSG SIZE rcvd: 117

What you see happening is that the resolution is being blocked by CleanBrowsing. Our DNS resolver is responding with:

;; AUTHORITY SECTION:
badexample.com. 3600 IN SOA cleanbrowsing.rpz.noc.org. accesspolicy.rpz.noc.org. 1 7200 900 1209600 86400

Because CleanBrowsing is a DNS Filter, it is able to intercept the request to badexample, compare it to the acceptable use policy with our Free Family filter and block it accordingly.

We build on the example above to offer users of our platform the most comprehensive filtering solution for Pornography and Obscene content. The illustration below highlights how it works:

CleanBrowsing, a DNS Filter

CleanBrowsing is a DNS-based filter that gives you the control to decide what is allowed on your network. You gain the visibility you need to protect your users against content they should not be seeing or visiting.

Our dashboard is flexible, easy to use, and provides advanced features allowing you to restrict access to multiple categories (from Adult content, Social Network, Gambling, Gaming, to Torrents and others) and allowing you to manually whitelist and blacklist domains. All built on top of a highly performant anycast network.

It can be used on schools to restrict access to adult content, on business to restrict access to malware, torrents, gaming and phishing or at home to protect the kids from explicit content.

DNS Filtering w/CleanBrowsing

CleanBrowsing provides a cost-effective DNS-based Content Filtering service that blocks access to unwanted content like malicious sites and online pornography.

Pricing

Improved security

We take special care to allow you easily enforce Safe Search on all major Search engines (Google, Bing, Yandex, DuckDuckGo), that no other DNS filter offers. Our pricing is also very affordable and very flexible to meet your needs.

Reach out (support@cleanbrowsing.org) to us if you are interested or have any questions.

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