Routers come in all shapes and sizes and we have individual step by step instructions for certain brands and models here. However, due to the variety of models, we might not have instructions for every single one. In this guide, we will provide generic instructions that may work for most brands. Once you do these changes, you will have a network fully protected and running CleanBrowsing.
Step 1: Login to your router administrative panel
First, go to your router administrative panel. It is generally located at same IP address as your network gateway:http://192.168.1.1
http://192.168.254.254
http://10.0.0.1
Try one of those. If you can not find it, try looking at the back of the router to see if it has the login URL. If you have a Mac, you can open the terminal and type “netstat -nr | grep ^default” (without the quotes) to find the network gateway IP address:
netstat -nr | grep '^default'
default 192.168.100.1 UGSc 82 0 en0
From this specific example, my router administrative panel would be at http://192.168.100.1. If you are running Windows, you can open the Command Prompt and type ipconfig | findstr /i “Gateway”:
ipconfig | findstr /i "Gateway"
Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.100.1
To find the default gateway (also at http://192.168.100.1). Once you find the right router URL, you can likely find the password at the back of the router if you don’t know what it is.
Step 2: Connection Settings
Next, you need to find the network connection settings in your router. It may be under “WAN Settings”, “Connection Settings”, “Internet” or something similar. Try clicking around until you find an option to change the “DNS Server” or “DNS Name Server”. Most likely it will have an option to change DNS1 and DNS2. If you see something about DynDNS (or Dynamic DNS), that would not be it. Keep looking.
Once you find it, change the Primary DNS Address (or DNS server) to 185.228.168.168 and the Secondary DNS to 185.228.169.168. If you are using one of our paid plans, change the two IP addresses for the ones we provide in your dashboard.
Step 3: Saving your changes
Once you are done changing the DNS, just click on “Apply” or “Save”. That will save your changes and you should be done.
It may take a few minutes for your computer DHCP Lease to get the new DNS, but you should be good to go. If you disable your Wifi and re-enable, it will force it right away. To test, try to visit badexample.com and you should be blocked (getting domain not founder error on your browser).