This week Facebook recommended OpenDNS on its Security Page, the place Facebook users are encouraged to go to learn how to stay safe on Facebook and on the Internet. OpenDNS is recommended because it takes the guesswork out of identifying phishing scams for you. Even if you click a suspicious link sent to you in a message by your Facebook friend, or posted on your wall, we’ll still prevent you from being fooled by showing you a warning. That’s a lot of incentive to use OpenDNS.

Like other social networks, Facebook seems to be working hard to eliminate phishing on its site. The more popular a site becomes, the more phishers are inclined to use it for phishing and saying Facebook has been gaining in popularity as of late is an understatement.

While Facebook has been growing its global user base we’ve been growing ours, and a big part of the reason people choose OpenDNS is our anti-phishing service. PhishTank.com has identified and verified more than 300,000 individual phishing scams, all of which are blocked for our users.

We’re thrilled Facebook recommends our service.

Just a friendly reminder that the “OpenDNS for Schools: Free and Efficient Web filtering for students” webinar is this Wednesday, Dec. 3 at 11 AM PST. It’s free to everyone who wants to attend, so be sure to invite friends and colleagues who aren’t using OpenDNS yet.

The event, hosted by Founder David Ulevitch, will answer all of your questions about OpenDNS in a K-12 school environment. Here’s the description:

K-12 schools make student security on the Internet a top priority. Learn how to use OpenDNS to enable free Web content filtering and security for students, achieve CIPA compliance, set up OpenDNS in minutes without the need for expensive hardware appliances, as well as how OpenDNS differs from competitive offerings.

We like our webinars short and sweet, so this one will be just 30 minutes in length. And no worries if you can’t tune in live - we’ll have a recorded version posted to the site after Wednesday.

Invite friends and register here. See you Wednesday!

UPDATE: Watch the recorded webinar here.

Giving holiday gifts is a big part of what makes this time of year so great, but with the economy going down the tubes, many of us are looking over our gift-giving lists and fretting about how we’re going to come up with gifts for everyone — without breaking the bank.

Going out on a limb here, but if you’re reading this, I’m gonna guess you’re the tech expert in your family and group of friends. You’re the one who’s asked to check your mom’s computer for viruses, who your neighbor runs laptop prices by to make sure he’s getting a good deal, who your friend calls when his Internet connection is flaky. You have knowledge and expertise they don’t, and this year I encourage you to gift it!

Give your loved ones the Gift of Safe, aka OpenDNS. Simply send everyone on your list the “You’ve Been Gifted” email we’ve created to make it as easy as possible to gift OpenDNS.

They’ll get all of the benefits you get now — industry-leading phishing protection, Parental Controls with more than 50 categories to choose from, and a faster and more reliable Internet connection. On top of all of that, this gift gives back. You’ll field fewer friends and family support requests.

Check out the video our good friend Chris Pirillo made for Gift of Safe this year, and give, give, give!

Happy holidays!