Does this sound familiar?

You labor, with the best of intentions, to keep everyone on your network safe and their comings and goings secure, only to be met with successful attempts to bypass your efforts? Well, we have a new feature for you today, and it might make some 14-year old kids cry a little.

We now let you block Web-based proxy sites.

We added a new category to our Adult Site Blocking functionality called “Proxy/anonymizer.” This category, like the other adult site categories, is provided by our friends at St. Bernard.

Here’s how we describe the new category:

Proxy/anonymizer

Sites providing proxy bypass information or services. Also, sites that allow the user to surf the net anonymously, including sites that allow the user to send anonymous emails.

If you are blocking most adult sites, you probably want to block Web-based proxies too. Like Adult Site Blocking, this is free, too.

As usual, this was added in response to your awesome and helpful feedback. Thanks for using OpenDNS.

When we launched OpenDNS Adult Site Blocking in June we gave you the power to block adult websites with simple categories. However, when blocking categories of sites there is sometimes a need for exceptions; that’s why we’re happy to announce the launch of a Domain Whitelist feature.

The Domain Whitelist feature is pretty simple, and I like how we explain it in the Dashboard:

A whitelist is a list of domains that will never be blocked on your network regardless of the content filtering categories you’ve turned on. For example, if you are blocking adult-themed sites but really want to visit celebrity gossip site tmz.com, you can add it to the whitelist below and get all the benefits of adult site blocking but still get your Paris Hilton fix.

Thanks to everyone who wrote in to tell us they wanted this feature. Even more thanks to Aaron, Joe, and Noah for making this happen on our side so quickly.

Yeah, we make your life easier with our 100% reliability and we save you time with super speedy browsing. We even keep you and yours safe with optional phishing protection. But often times it’s hard to quantify the amount of money we save you.

Not anymore, say our customers.

Since launching adult site blocking earlier this month, we’ve heard our free service is saving thousands of dollars for companies and organizations who would otherwise pay for a similar service that does the exact same thing - often not even as well as we do it.

This is great for companies, but even greater for schools and libraries with very limited technology budget, combined with regulations requiring filters to keep kids safe online. Like Jackson School District and Berkeley Public Libraries.

We’re glad we can provide you such an awesome service without exhausting your budget.

The Internet is a big place and even with the best filtering you will eventually stumble upon a site you wish you could just “un-see.” Unfortunately, we can’t erase that mental picture from your mind, but we can let you help protect others from the same experience.

When you stumble across a site you think should be blocked by one of our 6 categories of adult site blocking, let us know. Head on over to the adult domain checker, enter the domain of the site, and click the “Check this site” button. If there is no match against the St. Bernard iGuard database, you will be given the opportunity to submit it for human review.

You can even consider it your good deed for the day.

The famous quote about defining pornography is “I know it when I see it,” from a 1964 Supreme Court case. I’m glad we’re working with St. Bernard Software to get human-reviewed categorization of adult sites for our adult site blocking service.

At home, I’m the network administrator. While testing adult site blocking, I learned that you need to be careful what you block. My wife alerted (ahem) me to my overzealous blocking. For the interested, TMZ.com is classified as both lingerie/bikini and adult themes. I cannot disagree… but it’s still a fun celebrity gossip site. It’s no longer blocked on my network, though other categories are.

That kind of control is useful, and it’s why we offer 6 categories, so you can make the right choices for your network.

Avoid making my domestic misstep. Check a site to find out whether it would be blocked, and why.