Basic Surfer Home Router Configuration Guide

 

Safe Surfer provides standard Internet filtering for free. This easy guide will help you configure your main home router with Safe Surfer DNS servers.

Configuring your home router to use our free to DNS servers is an effective method of preventing accidental access to pornography and other harmful content. All devices accessing the Internet via your home router will pick up these settings.

What is DNS?

DNS is similar to a phone book. On the Internet, the URL of a website (e.g. safesurfer.co.nz) belongs to a public IP address. Public IP addresses on the Internet can be thought of like a number belonging to a home street address.

Configuring your home router:

1. Access your home router administration panel login page

You can open the login page by visiting your home router gateway address using the URL (website address) bar in your favourite web browser.

Check the rear or the bottom of your home router for a technical information sticker. It should list one or both of the following items:

  • Default username and password (e.g. admin; admin)
  • Default gateway address (e.g. 192.168.1.254)

Do not confuse the SSID (Wi-Fi network name) key (e.g. ABCD1234) for the administration panel password!

Some routers may not have this information labeled. If this is the case, the default address (and credentials) may be one of the following:

  • 192.168.1.1 (most Vodafone NZ routers)
  • 192.168.1.254 (most Spark NZ routers)
  • 192.168.8.1 (some Skinny NZ routers)
  • Username: admin     Password: admin
  • Username: admin     Password: password

2. Locate DNS server settings

Once you have successfully logged in, you will need to find the location of the DNS server configuration settings. This will likely be found in a menu related to LAN or WLAN, and a section related to a DHCP server (a service your router runs to give connected devices private [local] IP addresses). Changing these servers to our servers will filter device Internet requests by default. You may need to consult your router manual on where to find the location of the DNS settings.

3. Change DNS servers

Once you have discovered the location of the DNS server configuration settings, write down the current settings for future reference. Replace the old addresses with our addresses:

Primary: 104.197.28.121
Alternative: 104.155.237.225

Save the changes you have made. Your router may need to restart once you have saved changes.

4. Finished

Great—you should now be all set up! Devices should now automatically receive the DNS servers you configured. Visit our home page on a device and check the protection widget at the top to verify protection.

Keep in mind that devices can still override these DNS settings if not managed by an administrator.

Want more device management features? Get a Pro Surfer subscription at My Safe Surfer.