ScrubIT – The Anti-Porn DNS

ScurbIT is a free DNS service to filter unwanted porn, phishing and other malicious site. It blocks unsafe sites at the server level itself, preventing the users from accessing the site. It’s quite similar to OpenDNS, which focuses on speed and anti-phishing, but not content-blocking (Read our coverage here). There are plenty of software alternatives like Naomi to block porn, but we still love DNS based services because it removes the load off our systems.

ScrubIT can customize your DNS to block or allow your websites, but you’ll have to register for that and registration requires an invite, which can request from this page. To start using ScrubIT, you can either download their DNS configuring utility or configure it yourself by changing the DNS address of your router (More details here). While novice users might find using the utility easier, I’m personally in favor of configuring manually because you can easily revert things back to your originally settings (The utility lacks the uninstall option).

Their current revenue model doesn’t convince me. OpenDNS makes money by showing ads, if you wrongly type URL in the address bar, but there are no such ads in ScrubIT. Their about page hints that they might start charging to customize the site which must be blocked or allow. As of now, it’s free of cost. Maybe they are running a beta of their paid service.

It’s pretty obvious that you’ll soon find ScrubIT being used at a cyber café near you. Maybe even your school/college might start using it to block sites like Bebo or MySpace along with other porn sites.

Found on LifeHacker