I'm new to the board, but a long, long time user of Norton products (likely from day one in the Pleistocene). The latest update has caused the first problem I've ever had from Norton. I'm hoping there's an easy fix, as the Norton Help has been of no use.
The problem is simple to describe: many of my favorite websites are now blocked, and I receive "this domain is blocked" error message. I did not block any of these sites, which range from online blogs to vendors of various products.
I receive this message on all of my machines (including a Win7, Vista32, and XP machine). I've inserted a copy of the message immediately below.
Leupold.com, btw, is a manufacturer of range finders, scopes and other fine optical equipment, and definitely not a manufacturer of weapons.
I'm new to the board, but a long, long time user of Norton products (likely from day one in the Pleistocene). The latest update has caused the first problem I've ever had from Norton. I'm hoping there's an easy fix, as the Norton Help has been of no use.
The problem is simple to describe: many of my favorite websites are now blocked, and I receive "this domain is blocked" error message. I did not block any of these sites, which range from online blogs to vendors of various products.
I receive this message on all of my machines (including a Win7, Vista32, and XP machine). I've inserted a copy of the message immediately below.
Leupold.com, btw, is a manufacturer of range finders, scopes and other fine optical equipment, and definitely not a manufacturer of weapons.
Thanks for any assistance that can be given.
Max
Welcome Max
You are running a program called open dns. This is not a Norton product and may in fact be in conflict with your Norton product.
Norton does have a very nice little utility called Norton DNS and it is very compatible with other Norton Products. I strongly recommend that you eliminate the other program and install the Norton program - if you want a program that monitors the various domains you visit and keeps you from any that might be harmful.
I have tested the Norton product a bit and any time I headed towards a site that I KNEW would be trouble it blocked me before any harm was done
As dickevans points out, this is not a Norton action that you are reporting - these blocked sites are the result of your Web Content FIltering configuration with Open DNS. Open DNS is a highly regarded DNS service, and does not conflict with Norton. You certainly are welcome to switch to the Norton DNS service, if you would like, but there is no reason to do so from a compatibility standpoint - Open DNS will work just fine. Open DNS offers filtering which will block sites from various content categories based on what type of filtering each plan offers and the user selects. You need to go into your Open DNS settings and configure the filtering to allow weapons sites and other types of sites that you wish to access.
Do you have any idea as to where is this other program is "hiding?" I did not install it.
DNS services are selected by entering the product's DNS server addresses in either Windows Network Connections settings or the router. To use Open DNS Web Content FIltering you need to have an account. This is not something like a program that could sneak onto your system and hide. If you didn't change the DNS settings and open an Open DNS account, then someone else did.
Thanks for the last two messages! The issues are becoming clearer, but not to the point where I can resolve the problem for myself. I see two options.
Option one: change the settings in Open DNS. Alas, I do not understand how to access those settings. And, btw, the changes that are causing the problem were obviously not the result of my work. Very strange!
Option two: use Norton DNS and cut Open DNS out of the loop. Again, I do not know how to do this. But it sounds like a desirable fix to me. Alas, Norton help is of little use to an end user like me, who likes to install the software and never think about it again. Norton has down it's job admirably for me -- as in zero viruses -- since X86 processors were the rage. <g>
I hate to press for more advice as to how to take the next step, but it certainly would be appreciated.
Switching to Norton DNS would be one way to stop the Open DNS web filtering. You can either change the DNS settings manually or install the Norton DNS client to make the configuration changes for you. I am still a bit intrigued how you have come to be using Open DNS without any knowledge of having gone through the steps of setting it up - it definitely requires user action.
How bizarre. I found a couple of other cases. One was explained by the fact that the user occasionally connected through a VPN that was configured to use the default gateway at his office that had been set to use Open DNS with filtering.
I found another case where a person all of a sudden started getting OpenDNS search results on his PC and Mac; turned out his ISP had started using OpenDNS without telling anyone, even their server engineer did not know about it: OpenDNS
I found another case where a person all of a sudden started getting OpenDNS search results on his PC and Mac; turned out his ISP had started using OpenDNS without telling anyone, even their server engineer did not know about it: OpenDNS
Open DNS is one of the better services - and I don't see anything wrong with an ISP using its servers. Users are always able to reconfigure DNS settings on their own equipment to use any DNS service they choose, and most people find Open DNS preferable to what most ISP's provide. What I am having a hard time with is the notion that an ISP would impose web filtering - that just shouldn't be happening no matter what DNS service is being offered. Web filtering with Open DNS is optional.
Open DNS is one of the better services - and I don't see anything wrong with an ISP using its servers. Users are always able to reconfigure DNS settings on their own equipment to use any DNS service they choose, and most people find Open DNS preferable to what most ISP's provide. What I am having a hard time with is the notion that an ISP would impose web filtering - that just shouldn't be happening no matter what DNS service is being offered. Web filtering with Open DNS is optional.
My bad. I should be saying that I'm becoming less and less appreciative of the way this program is being used. Forced filtering of content by parents of their children's surfing I recommend. Force from any other source makes be think of big brother and that makes me very uncomfortable.
Thanks for all the information, gentlemen. In answer to the question re. my connection to the internet: living in the mountains of NM, the basic choice is a DSL modem and a router. That system has worked flawlessly for me for six plus years.
Thanks for all the information, gentlemen. In answer to the question re. my connection to the internet: living in the mountains of NM, the basic choice is a DSL modem and a router. That system has worked flawlessly for me for six plus years.
The DNS issue has been resolved, although a mystery remains. The solution was simple: my son is a computer engineer who also takes care of gnarly problems his Dad can't handle. <g> His fix took approximately one minute: open the LinkSys administrative page (he knows the password!). Remove the OpenDNS static IP that had somehow inserted itself ahead of the Qwest router IP. And voila, all systems back to normal.
The mystery remains: how did the OpenDNS static IP address insert itself into a password protected LinkSys router?
Again, thanks to all of you for the information and support.
Malware usually arrives hidden in sheep's clothing and once inside the gate does its dirty work. Which program or message or site is responsible for your problem I can't even begin to imagine. Working from the inside out is mucheasier than trying to get into a well protected system. Needless to say that all of the protection in the world isn't going to protect you form all of the 'nasties' being generated at an ever increasing rate. Be sure to say a speical thank you to your son from us [or me at least] tha's one of the last places I'd have looked for the bug.
Remove the OpenDNS static IP that had somehow inserted itself ahead of the Qwest router IP. And voila, all systems back to normal.
The mystery remains: how did the OpenDNS static IP address insert itself into a password protected LinkSys router?
Are you referring to the DNS server address settings in the router? OpenDNS cannot assign your router an IP address - only your ISP can do that.
So what we have is a situation where the DNS server settings were changed to point to OpenDNS, rather than, probably, Quest. I can think of no malware that would do that, or any reason why any malware would want to do that. What did your son say about this? Again, there is nothing wrong or sinister about OpenDNS - it is a very reputable and often recommended service. Lots of people, myself included, have switched to OpenDNS from their ISP's DNS service (particularly when many ISPs were slow to patch this vulnerability a few years ago). You don't suppose that someone knowledgeable, with access to your router, might have done this at some point as a "favor" do you?
Malware is no doubt an ever increasing problem. Fortunately, Norton and a little common sense has always protected me! So the OpenDNS issues was a complete surprise.
As noted in the previous message, OpenDNS is legitimate software, that earns its keep with "ads" as it were. I would send a screen shot of the LinkSys admin page but -- as noted -- why bother when my CS son handles all that for me. <g> However, I do recall clearly the setup: OpenDNS was inserted as a static IP address before or in front of or on top of the Qwest server. I wrote down that address, FWIW, which is likely zip (208.67.222.222). The fix was simply deleting the static IP address that pointed to the OpenDNS.
My son offered a highly detailed "lecture" (only fair I suppose <g>) on the ins and outs of the internet, most of which was way, way over my head in the computer science stratosphere. He, as with the last comment, was indeed perplexed as to how the OpenDNS IP address managed to insert itself into "the system." I noted that I had ran a complete/full Norton scan, which detected no problem. He left me with the observation that IF the DNS glitch reappears, then he'll study the issue further.
