A DNS filter that is silently not working is worse than none at all, because the whole family trusts it. OpenDNS gives you official test pages for exactly this. Five minutes of testing tells you whether your setup is real or just typed in.
Every family that installs OpenDNS should run these tests once, on the day of setup and again whenever something feels off. There are four separate things to prove: that your devices are actually asking OpenDNS (many are not, even after you change the router), that phishing protection answers, that your categories block what you chose, and — the deep check — which resolver really answered, straight from the command line. Each test below takes under a minute.
On each important device, connected to your Wi-Fi, open welcome.opendns.com. A "Welcome to OpenDNS" page with a success message means that device is using OpenDNS. An "Oops" page means it is not — no matter what the router settings claim. Test on a phone and a PC at minimum. If a device fails: restart it (devices cling to old DNS answers), and check that its own network settings are set to automatic, not to some manually typed DNS from long ago. On Windows, run ipconfig /flushdns to clear cached answers before retesting.
Open internetbadguys.com. This harmless page exists only so you can test: if phishing protection is live, OpenDNS refuses it and shows its phishing block page instead. This test works with both free shapes — the dashboard addresses and Family Shield — because phishing and malware domain blocking is built into the resolvers themselves, not into your category choices. If the test page opens normally, your traffic is not reaching OpenDNS at all; go back to Test One and the command-line check below.
Phishing protection proves the pipe works; it does not prove your rules work. Pick a category you blocked in the dashboard (or any adult site if you use Family Shield), and try to open a site from it. You should land on the OpenDNS block page. If it opens, the usual cause is the dynamic IP problem — your dashboard no longer recognises your network — covered in its own guide in this series. One more honest note: dashboard stats are not instant. On the free Home service, blocked-domain reports can take hours to appear, and the very first stats may take up to a day. A quiet stats page right after setup is normal, not a failure.
For the final word, ask the resolver directly. On Windows open Command Prompt and run:
nslookup -type=txt debug.opendns.com — if OpenDNS answers with server details like the panel above, your queries genuinely reach OpenDNSnslookup whoami.akamai.net — shows the public IP your lookups appear to come from; compare it with the IP registered in your dashboardnetsh interface ipv4 show config — shows which DNS servers this PC is actually configured with, ending all arguments about what was typed whereRun these on the device that is misbehaving, not on a healthy one — DNS problems are per-device far more often than people expect.
The full setup video ends with the same verification — watch each test so you know what a pass and a fail look like.
▶️ Watch Full VideoBecause they test different things. The welcome page proves your lookups reach OpenDNS; category blocking additionally needs the dashboard to recognise your network by its public IP. If your ISP changed that IP, your rules stop applying while resolution keeps working. Update the IP in the dashboard or set up the updater.
Yes. It is a test page maintained so users can verify phishing protection. If your protection works, you never even see it — OpenDNS blocks it as a phishing site. If protection is absent it simply shows a page explaining it is a test.
After any router change, ISP change or firmware update, and whenever a blocked site is reported opening. A ten-second welcome test on one phone is enough for a routine check.