Open DNS and Site Blocking

Open DNS is a free service with a number of cool features for making your web surfing easier and/or safer. The options can be turned on individually. Some of these are especially useful for people who want to protect their children from stumbling onto bad stuff.

1. “Adult” site blocking. There are a number of categories under this that you can turn on or off.
2. Typo correction. Handy if you're prone to typing things like .cmo instead of .com
3. Phishing block. Blocks known scam sites.
4. Create URL shortcuts for sites you visit often. Basically gives you AOL keyword capability on your own network.
5. Filters .cm wildcards. You'll never again be greeted with the obnoxious Kevin Ham add pages when you accidentally omit the “o” in .com.
6. Manually block specific domains.

The only downside I've run into is that sometimes using Open DNS breaks the ability of Content Delivery Networks to determine your location, and therefore can cause issues with downloads from iTunes or streaming from Netflix.