How DNS filtering keeps kids safer on a Windows PC.

Every device on the internet turns a site name into an address with a DNS lookup before it can load anything. FamilyProtect sits at that layer on the PC itself. Each lookup is checked against harmful categories, and anything that matches is blocked before the page ever starts to load, so there's nothing to load and close, no ad to flash past, and no partial page to see.

Because the check happens beneath the browser, it doesn't matter which app made the request. Content filtering that only lives inside one browser, like a built-in parental control that only covers Edge, leaves every other browser and any app with its own web view wide open. DNS filtering covers the whole PC: install a second browser, and it's filtered exactly the same as the first.

A determined kid's next move is usually to try to get around it, so the protection blocks the common escape routes too. Turning on encrypted DNS (DoH) to hide lookups from the filter is blocked and logged as a bypass attempt for the endpoints we know about, not quietly allowed. VPN and anonymiser domains are blocked the same way. The same layer blocks the domains malware uses to phone home, not just the sites someone browses to. If a setting does get changed, protection repairs itself within minutes rather than staying off. Pairing it with a standard, non-administrator Windows account for your child closes the last gap, since an admin account could otherwise disable the software outright. And because filtering runs on the PC rather than the home router, it keeps working when the laptop goes to school, a friend's house, or anywhere else off your home Wi-Fi.