Away-from-home mobile device to use alternate IP config.
First some background. I work in tech development and typically have 10-25 fixed and mobile devices in my home at any time. Tablets, prototypes, ultrabooks, cellphones, IoT devices, dev-boards, servers, appliances. The whole gamut. I need to access a variety of websites (forums, security tests, work, partner, many others) while also preventing my tweens from surfing without boundaries. I cannot use the universal serve-OpenDNS from my DHCP server solution. So, I have static-configured those devices they use (have passwords for) to use OpenDNS and the the remainder of my own devices are a mix of static and DHCP served devices without OpenDNS. That works while everyone is at home.
When my kids take mobile devices out of the home they of course cannot access the 'net because their at-home static IP config is not relevant. Rather than have the device die until I manually reconfigure it to DHCP again I'd prefer a more painless solution.
My suggestion: a mobile app (Android for my preference but obviously IOS and Win8 too) which will automatically reconfigure and revert-configure the mobile device when it leaves and returns to home. At home a static IP config, or at least a static DNS config; away from home a standard DHCP client. Determine when the device is away from home by (1) out of range of white-list WiFi APs (by MAC and/or SSID); (2) other methods such as GPS, grey-list APs, various other methods. When they are away from home in public places with friends/relatives/me I am less concerned about what OpenDNS might have blocked than the pestering to fix their devices.
Enhancement: a WiFi AP (MAC address) triggered list of alternate static configs so that as the device travels from various relative's homes also using OpenDNS the app loads the appropriate pre-agreed static IP config.
[Android does not permit a partial static config which would allow me to use the DHCP client to obtain the IP/GW/Mask and yet use a static DNS config list on which I would put OpenDNS's servers above a public DNS such as Google's DNS service].
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The easiest way would be to have a mac registered with opendns so that when it asks for dns access it gets put into a specific users profile for use. This way you could just have the dns changed on each device and no matter where they go it would still work. I'm not sure this is possible for OpenDNS though.
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Why advertising a pay app if you can get also free apps for the same purpose?
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=net.emrekoc.dnschanger&hl=en
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.eddypcz.dnschanger&hl=en
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=uk.co.mytechie.setDNS&hl=en -
rotblitz, I'm not advertising, just suggesting, but mainly because I found DNSet first. Plus I believe in supporting paid apps and I can afford a dollar to support Android Devs. (I also pay for OpenDNS; 7yrs.)
On your list, the first one doesn't support 3g/4g dns and while "free" the minute I opened it, I got a giant ad popup. $1 for no ads is worth it.
The next 2 require root. Since I'm rooted, I'll give them a try but the last one has a free and paid version so I assume the "free" one is ad supported.
That only solves half of the problem though. The bigger issue is that OpenDNS still won't know it's me so they won't apply my custom filters. The best answer would be for OpenDNS to add Android support to the Umbrella app.
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A lot of Android seems to be "hard wired" to use Googles own public DNS servers. Some of it even seems to fail intermittently if port 53 traffic is redirected to OpenDNS.
If I redirect all DNS traffic to OpenDNS I sometimes find one or two of my apps will not update from the play store.
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It doesn't seem to be Android, but the Chrome browser. Use another browser then.
Or disable the Data Saver option.
https://support.google.com/chrome/answer/2392284?co=GENIE.Platform%3DAndroid&hl=en -
For sure, because DNS Changer changes the Android network settings only, but not the Data Saver option of Chrome. You may contact the app author to see if they can implement disabling the Data Saver open of Chrome when changing the network settings.
What is "it" and not compatible with Lollipop? DNS Changer?
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