Safe Surfer makes it easy to install an effective porn blocker on your home Wi-Fi. Along with protecting your privacy, we also use our behind-the-scenes technology to block porn and other harmful online content. This guide will efficiently walk you through how to install protection.

Before we get started, it’s good to know that installing protection on your home Wi-Fi can sometimes be tricker that it seems. In addition, if you have a wireless broadband connection (rather than a fibre or copper-based connection), it’s unlikely that these instructions will work. If you get stuck, check out our protection apps! These install protection directly on a smartphone or a computer and are a great way to block porn and apps, along with monitor the online activity of your loved ones. We can also prevent protection from being uninstalled in a variety of cases. Otherwise, let’s get started!

Step 1: Find the login details

We have various tailor-made guides available for modems and routers provided by different Internet service providers worldwide:

Can’t see your service provider or manufacturer above? The instructions that follow are the general steps we take to install protection.

Some modern Wi-Fi network brands support changing the network settings from an app on your smartphone. You’ll be looking for a menu called “DNS”. Otherwise, your home router will likely have the login details printed on a sticker. This sticker can usually be found on the rear or the bottom of the modem. Sometimes these details can be hidden behind a sliding card.

For this particular modem, the login details are the following:

  • IP address: 192.168.1.254
  • Username: admin
  • Password: admin

If you can’t find the details, check the user manual. This can usually be found online by searching for the model and its default login details. You could also contact your Internet service provider (ISP) for assistance on how to change the DNS settings on your modem.

Pro tip: If you get stuck, please feel free to open the chat bubble on this page and chat with us! Send us the model of your modem, and we can help you with the following installation steps.

Step 2: Install DNS

Open your modem app, or enter the IP address you found into the top search bar of a web browser (such as Google Chrome or Firefox).

Enter the login details when asked. Once you’re logged in, you’ll be looking for a section that lets you change your DNS settings—there will usually be a menu somewhere that lets you set custom IPv4 DNS addresses (and possibly also IPv6 DNS addresses). These settings can usually be found within a menu called Internet Connection or WAN. In other cases, they can be found within a menu called LAN, Local Network, DHCP Server, or Advanced. If you’re using a mobile app for your home Wi-Fi, these settings can usually be found somewhere within the Settings menu.

Next you will be looking for a pair of fields labelled “Primary DNS” and “Secondary DNS”. If only one field is available, you will need just the primary address.

  1. Primary IPv4 address: 104.197.28.121
  2. Secondary IPv4 address: 104.155.237.225

Once you’ve filled in the field(s), click the Apply (or Save) button to save the changes. If the modem supports installing custom IPv6 DNS servers, look for the IPv6 menu and use the following addresses. Otherwise, you should turn off the IPv6 features to ensure that the filtering works correctly. Copying the full set of numbers for each address below is necessary.

  1. Primary IPv6 address: 2600:1900:4000:524c:8000:0001:0000:0000
  2. Secondary IPv6 address: 2600:1900:4030:6b9d:8000:0000:0000:0000

Once the changes have been saved, make sure that you restart all the devices that use Wi-Fi at home. This helps make sure that the blocking works immediately on each device.

Verify the protection installation by visiting ExampleAdultSite.com inside a web browser. This is a safe website designated for testing if pornographic websites are being blocked. This site should be blocked. If we’re blocking something, you’ll usually see a blank connection error page.

If you have any Apple devices (that is, iPhones, iPads, or Macs), you will also need to enable the Limit Adult Websites setting on those devices to disable the Private Browsing Mode feature for Safari—this feature ignores the Safe Surfer filtering received from your home router:

  • For each iPhone and iPad device, navigate to the Settings app > Screen Time > Content & Privacy Restrictions (and enable this feature if it’s not already turned on) > Store, Web, Siri & Game Center Content (on older devices, this menu is called Content Restrictions) > Web Content > set to Limit Adult Websites. Once you’re done, navigate back to the Screen Time main menu, which will save the changes.
  • For each Mac device, navigate to the System Settings app > Screen Time > Content & Privacy (and enable this feature if it’s not already turned on) > Store, Web, Siri & Game Center Content (on older devices, this menu is called Content Restrictions) > under Web Content, set Access to Web Content to Limit Adult Websites, then click the Done button at the lower-right corner. Once you’re done, navigate back to the Screen Time main menu, which will save the changes. Open the Safari app > click the Safari text on the left-hand side of the menu bar (at the top of the screen) > click the Quit option. Repeat this process for every user account on the Mac.

Step 3: Get further parental controls

The Safe Surfer dashboard gives you access to comprehensive parental controls. The dashboard has a feature where you can create custom block rules for your home router.

Pro tip: this feature requires a Pro Surfer subscription and works best when you have a “static IP” (that is, a non-changing public IP address) with your Internet service provider. Contact your ISP on how to get a static IP, or try our easy-to-use apps.

Open the Devices menu (found on the left-hand sidebar) on the Safe Surfer dashboard. Click the “+ New Device” button.

Click Wi-Fi & network > Use my existing router. Enter a name, then click the Accept button.

Go back to the Devices menu and click the Connect button found under the device listing just made.

Click the Plain DNS field, then click the Link button. This will sync any custom block settings.

You can now open the Blocking menu, select the router device from the blue bubble, and block categories. Click the Save button once you’re done. These changes might take a minute to sync over.

Protection complete

Great work! The devices connected to this home router should now be protected. Visit our easy-to-use online dashboard to start monitoring traffic and blocking content from our premium categories with an affordable Pro Surfer subscription.

The Safe Surfer team works hard to provide families worldwide with the best protection possible from porn. We block hundreds of thousands of pornographic websites through our live database, and our intelligence feeds provide us with the ability to block newly discovered websites on a regular basis for all our users.

If you would like to protect a different kind of device, visit our Guides page.