Can I use OpenDNS for free?

Can I use OpenDNS for free?

Can I set it up myself or will I need to pay for something?

The idea of using OpenDNS seems rather daunting

OpenDNS has many useful features, including: An intelligent blocking service (OpenDNS). Free phone support. Free Wi-Fi router installation (to replace your network's standard router). The cost of installing and using the device on your home network is covered by a 1-year free trial. You'll be able to get the free router setup during that time.

You can also upgrade to paid plans from there, if you wish to go beyond the free trial. A few features are available without subscriptions, however. Some of the free features include: OpenDNS website security scans (every week). The web filtering (every day). Intelligent parental controls for children (every day). All of this is pretty standard stuff, though OpenDNS does offer some extra benefits. For example: In-browser chat (if your broadband connection isn't fast enough for web video). DNS (domain name system) caching (speed up your broadband speed). If you want to give OpenDNS a try, then click here. You can use the 30-day free trial, as long as you don't cancel before 30 days.

Am I using OpenDNS?

Yes.

I use my iPhone as a primary device to check what sites are available via my home wifi.e. My IP address is 192.168.14.

Is there anything wrong here? Your home router most likely does not forward ports 22 (SSH) and 80 (HTTP) to your home computer. If you don't already have a domain name for your home, please use the address above, eg www.home-pc.net.

If your DSL modem also allows forwarding of these ports, please forward to your computer. I'm using a different ISP but I think OpenDNS is just a generic network provider? If your DNS servers that you use at work don't provide DNS information about the local network, it may because your system's time is set to EST (if the time zone is set to the continental USA). A good site to consult on any Internet issues is If you'd like us to take a look at your system so that we can recommend some settings for all users, send me a PM and provide your public ip address. Thanks!

How do I configure my router to OpenDNS?

(OpenDNS Proxy for Dynamic DNS)

Update 2016: The below methods are no longer the "optimal" options for using an OpenDNS proxy on modern devices due to security issues surrounding DNS over HTTPS. I recommend either using Wifi-Direct or configuring the Google Chrome / Google DNS.

How can I use an open source dynamic DNS provider when connecting to WiFi? If I am outside of a private or corporate Wi-Fi network, I'd like to use the free service offered by OpenDNS which is just called "OpenDNS" and was referred to me as a "dynamic DNS." A great alternative may be FreeDNSSEC Dynamic DNS from www.dnscheck.org . If you are currently using a device with a router without Dynamic DNS functionality (as of 2011), you can probably use the DynDNS.com service, but I don't have experience with that.

The first hurdle you will run into if you use OpenDNS for this is that it is not yet a router feature available. If this sounds familiar, OpenDNS provides a Dynamic DNS service but cannot handle requests directly from your router. To use their service on your router you need to connect an unconfigured modem or USB modem to the router and then configure it to use OpenDNS's DNS. I have used this exact configuration successfully.

Before you can configure your router to use an OpenDNS Dynamic DNS provider we first need to make sure you can configure a working Dynamic DNS Service from within your network and from our mobile devices without any problems at all. Using DynDNS on Your Router. If you want the simplest option for configuring OpenDNS using a DDNS service provided by OpenDNS you can use DynDNS, they are the most straightforward, easiest option I found. In the last two years I've also used Dynu DNSService and FreeDNS because these services appear to be the only way to enable DDNS using the free version of OpenDNS. They are both included in my router setup guide below.

If there is a problem with your router or another service providing DDNS you may see some text or error messages stating that Dynamic DNS isn't enabled or is disabled. Don't worry, OpenDNS is still going to work - this is probably just a message being shown because DNS isn't working in the configuration.