Each time you log into your FreeFiltering Settings page, we automatically detect your IP address and register it to your account under "Registered IP Addresses for DNS" on your Settings page. The red arrow indicates the IP address you're currently using:
Why? This lets us know which user's filter settings to respond with when we receive a DNS request from that particular IP address.
But sometimes, you might start sending DNS requests from a brand new IP address that we don't recognize. This might happen if you haven't recently logged into your FreeFiltering account after one of the following scenarios has occurred:
1) Your ISP is changing your IP address on a frequent basis (e.g. a satellite internet provider),
2) You re-boot your modem, in which case your ISP might change your IP address,
3) You're connecting via a mobile hotspot where your IP address changes almost every time you re-enable the hotspot connection.
These situations do not affect the vast majority of users who have typical broadband ISP service coming into their home. If you suspect these situations apply to your situation, you could always log into your FreeFiltering account immediately after you suspect one of these scenarios so that your IP address is automatically registered with us and we know to respond with your specific filter settings.
Since we don't want your wi-fi to ever be totally unfiltered, we respond to DNS requests from unrecognized IP addresses with the following default filters:
1) Strict Safe Search Enforced
2) The following categories blocked by default:
a) abortion
b) adult content
c) bypass methods
d) lgbt
e) sensitive (reviewed)
f) any domain ending with .lgbt, .porn, .sex, .sexy, or .xxx
It's the standard defaults for new signups minus classification, block page and new domains category. Enabled settings are safe search strict, abortion, adult content, bypass methods, lgbt, sensitive (reviewed), *.lgbt, *.porn, *.sex, *.sexy, *.xxx and logging.
If you know that your IP address changes frequently, you would be much better off becoming a Premium member. This would allow you to use Secure DNS ("DNS over HTTPS" or "DNS over TLS") to apply specific filters to specific devices regardless of whether the IP address for your Wi-Fi network has changed, since devices using Secure DNS won't be relying on filters from your Wi-Fi network (an added benefit is that the devices will be filtered even when away from home!) .
As a Premium member, you can also set up "Dynamic DNS" so that we are notified automatically when the IP address for your Wi-Fi network changes, eliminating the need to log into your account so we can automatically detect your Wi-Fi networks' IP address.
REMEMBER: Frequent IP address changes do NOT occur for the vast majority of users with typical broadband internet connections. Even if the IP address for your Wi-Fi network DOES change and we're not notified (by you logging into your FreeFiltering account from the Wi-Fi network), we will still respond with basic default filters.