Let’s Block Our Ads For Free and Also Keep Our Children safe
Sat, Mar 4, 2023
Let’s Block ads, those annoying little popups, with NextDNS. Before, we start that, let’s understand the concept of DNS.
DNS according to Cloudflare is a Phonebook of Internet. It translates your domain name to ip address. Each computer or device connected to internet has different IP address and its too much for us to remember those numbers. So instead of need to remembering addresses we have domain names. Such as this blog. Even though you write https://blog.ashishghimire.com in your address bar it points to 3.24.66.78. We can see it here:
There are different kind of DNS, consult this Cloudflare Page to go deep. But we will keep it light here and see how we can block ads and basic concept of the website we are using.
Now we know DNS points to website, imagine if it does not point to the ones you don’t want. Its such a simple concept yet so powerful.
ADS
When you go onto a website generally ads are loaded from another website, For example once the ads are allowed on this website it will load through google ads, which is ads.google.com. There are many ad servers like this that load another link on different sites. Some are annoying and intrusive, some are downright danger with Viruses and Malware on them. Regardless they do track your activity from your browser so they can play with your indulges and give you those ads. Talk for shoes, you’ll see an ad within few minutes. You could’ve thought of it and forgotten and saved your money but nope those intrusive ads are going to make you buy it. Even if you don’t want it. Some time it’s planted right on your brain. Watch the movie Focus if you want know how your subconscious works or read books on PSYOPs. So yeah Ads.
Parental Guidance
I have a lot to vent about this, I am not sure if this is a right place but Nextdns or OpenDNS is surley gonna help you with your child’s activity in the internet.
Internet is a wild wild west if you don’t know yet. Your kid don’t have to learn to use internet, they were born here. They were probably born because you found your wife on internet. They are product of that then, regardless, kids grow on Internet. They are going to learn a lot in it. Not always good things though. So if you are in Dilemma are have a second thought, let me remind you:
⚡ Your ignorance is not a good enough reason to let your child roam wild in the internet.
One way of Filtering what your kid sees in the internet is filtering the websites they visit. You do so much for your child, work yourself to death, kill your own dreams when needed, put yourself through hell for them. Learning a little bit of monitoring them is nothing compared to what you go through every day. And with tools like this and basic concepts its very achievable.
Do IT!
NextDNS
Next DNS or Open DNS are filtering DNS’ they filter which sites can your device talk to. Next DNS is open source and many independent developers and Tech Enthusiasts go through their code to see any misinformation. So they are audited time to time. There are many resolver but I choose this because its easy to follow and have fairly usable UI and also offers free service for 6000 queries each month, which is good enough to monitor internet usage your school going kid. If you want to see other options, head over to PrivacyTools.io. If you really love it, there are paid plans that you can check too. Remember, this ain’t advertisement. I am not gonna receive anything from NextDNS or Privacytools.
My first Profile
In this section you can setup multiple profiles with multiple settings for multiple devices, let’s say this is accounts within account. You can have different sets for your child, mobiles, pc, iphones, etc with each having different setting.
ID or IDS
This is your config id you are going to setup in your app or service.
Menu Tabs
There are multiple tabs here as name suggests:
Security: Default Settings is good enough, do visit it if you want to customise it.
Privacy: This is list of Custom List of Websites in the internet. This is more like community driven list which are updated in regular basis. Its basically library of websites you don’t usually need. Be careful though and choose the list as it may block some website you use on regular basis
Parental Control: This is one of two major tabs we are going to focus today.
Websites Apps and Games: This is list of top level services and can be blocked with one click.
Categories: This has pre-filled categories given below.
Add whatever you want to block.
Recreation Time: With this option you can setup time for different websites on days like if you don’t want your child to watch tiktok after 9 PM. You can do it here.
Rest are Self explanatory
Youtube Restricted Mode is not fully functional yet, and generally discouraged to use in the community.
Settings: I do not usually touch settings here. You can choose if you can enable logs options whether to log IPs, domains and which server you want them to be stored on. I go for Switzerland and leave it as it is so i can see what devices are accessing which websites. Its upto you at this point.
Setup Guides
You can setup all these devices with the step by step guide given in the section.
Summary
DNS blocks unwanted site
DNS filters make it easy to use for everyone
Monitor your kids activity and let DNS handle it
So, there you have it Keep yourself and your kids secure from prying eyes of Internet.
💡 I am not associated with any products except this site ashishghimire.com and its subdomains mentioned in the following article.
