DNS Angel: enable family protection with a click

DNS Angel is a free portable program for Microsoft Windows devices that allows you to enable family protection with a click on the PC.

As the name suggests it already, DNS Angel does so by setting various family friendly DNS services on the system.

There are several options when it comes to making the Internet family friendly, using security software, firewalls or parental controls for instance, and also DNS.

DNS is used to look up information on the Internet. This is handled by DNS servers that Windows machines make use of. These are often provided by the Internet Service Provider, but may be changed as well. Services that offer family protection block sites that are not family friendly.

DNS Angel

DNS Angel is a basic program. It offers two major advantages over changing the DNS servers manually:

1. The program ships with several family friendly providers.
2. You can set the providers with a click.

DNS Angel ships with support for Norton ConnectSafe, Yandex Family, and OpenDNS Family. All have in common that they block adult content. The difference between Norton ConnectSafe 1 and 2 is that the first blocks sites hosting malware, phishing and scams next to adult content, and the second all of that plus other mature content such as alcohol, gambling or violence.

You can switch to one of the available family friendly DNS services with a click on the button. DNS Angel highlights the change right away in the interface.

Options to restore the DNS and to switch to the default DNS are provided as well. Default DNS resets the settings to the defaults; this means usually that no custom DNS servers are used which in turn means those provided by the ISP are used. Restoration worked without issues on multiple systems.

One question that may come up is whether you should use DNS Angel, or set the DNS servers manually instead.

If you know how to, it is usually better to set them manually. The only exception to the rule is if you need to switch between different DNS servers regularly. Software like DNS Angel is not really suitable for that, unless you only want to switch between the supported DNS services. Program like DNS Jumper and even DNS Benchmark are better suited for that as you can add custom servers to them.

Here are the DNS Server IP addresses of the used services:

• Norton ConnectSafe Security only: 199.85.126.10 and 199.85.127.10.
• Norton ConnectSafe Security and Adult content: 199.85.126.20 and 199.85.127.20.
• Norton ConnectSafe Security, Adult and other: 199.85.126.30 and 199.85.127.30.
• OpenDNS Family Shield: 208.67.222.123 and 208.67.220.123
• Yandex.DNS Safe: 77.88.8.88 and 77.88.8.2
• Yandex.DNS Family: 77.88.8.7 and 77.88.8.3

DNS Angel is compatible with all 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Microsoft's Windows operating system from Windows XP all the way to Windows 10.

Closing Words

While I prefer to set DNS servers manually, I can see the use for a program like DNS Angel. It enables you to turn on family protection quickly, useful when one of your kids wants to use the computer you are working on. Just run DNS Angel, and enable one of the services to add a layer of protection.

It is always best obviously to stay around and assist on top of that. I'd like to see options to add custom DNS servers to the program.

Now You: Do you use default or custom DNS servers?

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