SafeDNS Reviews

Very easy to install and integrate. The service allowed for more flexible options - such as a longer whitelist of websites - as well as less complicated than Cisco Umbrella.

The ability to disable the content filtering for maintenance or troubleshooting had been an issue, but an update corrected it.

Hi Edward! Thanks for such a positive review. We are happy to be making content filtering simple for you! Cheers, SafeDNS

Safedns does a great job of making DNS based administration quick and easy. Safedns also does a great job of allowing administrators to define a list of allowed sites and deny everything else. Some of the big players in this space surprisingly don't have this functionality.

I didn't care for the SafeDNS agent software. We tried it on a few systems and decided to apply at the network level for filtered vlans.

Good day Troy! Thank you for leaving such a detailed and positive review. Sure, it's up to you to choose between router or agent installation, but we always recommend the router option. Cheers, SafeDNS

product worked perfectly for a year, now constant issues every week we have 2-3 outages and support has not stated anything other than to let them know if it happens again, am under huge pressure from division managers to fix once and for all, unfortunately, safedns still cannot find the issue so I am now shopping for other providers :(

product no longer works , support seems to not care about fixing at all

Hi James! Thanks for honestly sharing your thoughts. It's been some time, and we have taken this period to improve and learn from our mistakes. Our tech support is 24/7, always online, and the average response of our team in tech support chat in March was 67 seconds. Reviews like yours help us become better, so thank you again. Cheers, SafeDNS

Great support during set up and use by our company. Very helpful when fixing those settings which I didn't read up on in the guide - had a "man" look.

Not a "known" elite brand but I feel this to be a good thing. Not expert in all things IT but expert in this field.

Hi Frank! Thanks for your kind words. We do try to stay focused on our main product improving the quality and keeping it affordable at the same time. Reviews like yours help us feel even more motivated to work harder! Cheers, SafeDNS

Easy console to use, the service does work.

At times, searches are slow or look ups are slow across the network SafeDNS is securing, some frames don't return properly, if at all, on a web page. End user does not know what is wrong or if something is being blocked; and yes, there is a blocked page warning configured. Doesen't show up.

SafeDNS has an easy way to administrate all the rules on our network. I like the way that has the filters for a safe google search. The pre-rules are extensive but flexible at the same time if you want a restrictive network without sacrifice speed and functionality. All these advantages for a great value price.

I would like to have more number of domain registers on the white/black option lists. I think 40 entries it's not enough.

I've been using SafeDNS on the school network I manage for a number of years. Here's the pros: 1. The cost, especially for educational institutions, is very affordable. 2. Implementation is simple if you're well versed in router configuration. 3. The interface is simple. Preset categories seem to be fairly effective. 4. Forced Safe Search for search engines and Forced Restricted Mode for YouTube is a great feature for implementing in a school. 5. Changes in configuration can be made from any web browser at any time, so management is remote.

1. At the present time, the SafeDNS agent, which automatically sends your IP information to SafeDNS, is available for Windows only. macOS users are out of luck. For my application, this isn't a huge deal because I have the network set up on a static IP, but for those with a dynamic IP address, the only way to keep the filtering working 100% is to use the agent app.

Great central management of multiple accounts, with plenty of customisations for the block page etc. We use SafeDNS on customers’ firewalls, including campsites, hostels and garden centre Café’s!

It would nice to be alerted if the service has received no dns hits for xx hours - this can happen if a dns record is changed, but I forget to update SafeDNS

Good day Paul! We really appreciate the kind words. As to the alerts you mentioned, noted! Will be sure to tell our tech team and see if that's possible to implement. Cheers, SafeDNS

The ease at which you can get started with SafeDNS is amazing. So simple to implement to the edge routers and just like that your internal network is covered.

Deployment of the client version was tricky but a quick call to support sorted it no problem

Hi Jason! I'm glad you felt good about our tech support. Very pleased to hear our efforts resonated with you. Thanks for leaving such a positive review! Cheers, SafeDNS

Good ux & ui, easily understandable interface. No unnecessary features, fast support, the product itself has no issues and just works in the background.

I'd love an agent for iOS, we are currently using other agents but iOS is needed

I needed a simple and affective way to manage our home network and filter out the trash from all the good that is on the internet. I work in the IT industry and so I explored a number of options including locally installed software like Qustodio, NetNanny and many others. The issue with all of the locally installed software was the constant maintenance and performance issues. They were also too...

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DNS blocking is not fool proof. At the same time it is relatively easy and economical to implement and the problem cases can be dealt with on an individual basis. Some users have figured out that they can use TOR to get around DNS blocking, I am currently exploring router updates to prevent that. Use of a VPN will also bypass overly permissive DNS blocking. That is one reason why I switched to using a whitelist. A thought for SafeDNS. Consider allowing categories to be used as a whitelist instead of a blacklist. e.g. Rather then allowing everything except that which is blocked... Instead, block everything (including the unknown/uncategorized) except those categories that are known to be good.

Hi Anthony! Such a nice review, thanks so much - we really appreciate it! We do have "allow-list only" option! You are correct, for some cases it works much better. Cheers, SafeDNS

Once the software is set up, it's simple. The end-users don't have to really *do* anything. It just starts taking affect, and preventing them from accessing the sites we don't want them to access. This is true even where the users are distributed, and not on the same network.

This product is not, at its heart, designed for the MSP model. It's designed for, "I'm using this to manage my network." And so, licensing is not as clear as I'd like to see it. Managing licenses, or license groups is also not as clear as I'd like. There also doesn't seem to be a very clear guide as to what command-line options are needed for a push-out deployment.

Very easy to setup. No additional servers, software. Short learning curve. Effective delivery of Web Filter Security. Very easy to Maintain.

A few years ago, products like this were free. Now the annual fee goes up every year.

The use of classes or type of web content and the use of white/black lists. Also the possibility to create profiles and schedules.

There are various factors that affect that the software works well, so is not that simple for a non technical person to determine where the problem could be if the software is not working properly, however, the support from SafeDNS is really good and they will help you solve any issue. Also to get most out of the profiles it is necesary to install the client on a PC and also the vpn client on the phones, along with the dynamic dns client in case the router doesnt support it, so all this can complicate the installation and reduce the customer experience and satisfaction.

Easy to implementation, good performance

In China, we always get wrong DNS result for local web page. More function need for client.

Hey Albert! Thank you for the kind words. Have taken your notes on operation in China, will check in with our tech team. Appreciate the feedback! Cheers, SafeDNS

Our clients are schools. We differentiate profiles of teachers and students with easy using simple NAT rules in the gateway. Also, we can fine-tune the filter by adding white & black lists for all the customers, and even for a single customer, by individual profiles.

No special negative thoughts, actually.

Hello Antonio! Thanks for such an awesome review - we love working with schools, and happy to hear the feeling is mutual! Cheers, SafeDNS

When coming across a domain that is not categorized by Safedns, they promptly categorize or recategorize when requested. It is easy to download.

The shopping websites Gumtree and Ebay dont show pictures when Safedns is active. I have asked what to do to make it happen but in trying to follow what was instructed I couldnt make it work. I would like more help on it whch I will need to chat in writing about to try and fix.

You set up up and you are done. Have not had to do anything special or make any changes since I installed it several years ago.

I can't think of a thing that i don't like about it.

We are an internet provider that puts a good faith effort towards blocking content committed to pornography and explicit content. Safe DNS enables us to do that effectively.

At times it blocks content that isn't pornographic but Safe DNS is responsive if you need them to whitelist a website.

Hi Scott! Happy to hear SafeDNS has been working great for you! We appreciate you helping to spread the word about us. Cheers, SafeDNS

We reviewed multiple platforms for our needs and found that the ease of implementation across our network was the major reason for choosing this product. They worked with us to ensure we captured all of our traffic.

The features and reporting are basic but it meets our needs.

Hello Matt! Thank you so much for the nice review. We do try to keep our services affordable and the quality high. Glad to hear we are managing that! Cheers, SafeDNS

SafeDNS is a solid DNS based content filtering solution. The reliability and consistency is great.

While there are Windows and Android applications there is no Chromebook extension. This limits our content filtering effectiveness to on the school network.

Hi Thomas! Thank you for your review!

We have been using this software for years and are very happy with the results. School and Parents are grateful for the safety this software brings to us. When I check our stats and can see the protection that is being provided. Makes us very happy.

The one frustrating time was that none of the students could access Teams. One we realized that SafeDNS was blocking Teams it was a quick fix. Overall very happy with the program.

This software requires just an agent and the end user is not affected in their perfomance during the deployment.

The technical support is not as easy to contact abroad.

This product gives multiple options to safeguard our network. It is easy to use that where I am able to train another individual to change a configurations. My environment doesn't need crazy configurations or AD integrations. It is a great product for exactly what we need. It is also affordable for small organizations with small budgets as well.

I have not found any negatives for my environment.

SafeDNS has made it easy to block harmful, productivity limiting, and bandwidth hogging websites from our end users. No system is perfect and a few legitimate websites get blocked, but once again, SafeDNS makes it easy for me as an administrator to white list domains that our end users need to access. It is easy to set up and maintain.

Sometimes the product does not show the block page, which requires additional troubleshooting by us to see if the site is down or being blocked. It would be a perfect product if the block screen appeared every time a site was being blocked.