Articles on: Safe Surfer dashboard

How to check if a device is being monitored and protected with Safe Surfer

Not sure if a device is being protected by Safe Surfer? You can check using either of the following two methods.

Method 1: Safe Surfer dashboard



The best way to check if a device is currently protected is by visiting the Devices page on the Safe Surfer dashboard.

Visit the Devices menu (https://my.safesurfer.io/devices) from any device, such as your personal smartphone.



Click the More Info button on the device listing that you would like to check.



Next to the Last Internet activity field, the dashboard will report when our servers last received traffic to be filtered for this device. The most recent time is presented as having been "a few seconds ago".



In most cases, if the Last Internet activity field is more than a couple of days old, there are a few posibilities as to why this could happen:

If you tried to install protection (with custom blocking and monitoring) for a Wi-Fi modem/router, and you don't have what's called a "static IP" with your Internet service provider (which is common). If you're not sure about this, please feel free to send us an email.
The device hasn't been turned on (or hasn't talked to the Internet) for a period of time.
The device has been stored, given away, or sold.
An issue has taken place with the protection inside the Safe Surfer app (usually in specific, technical cases).
The device user has attempted to remove the protection from the device.

You can also use the following method to check the protection status on a device.

Method 2: Various checks on the physical device



If you have the Safe Surfer app installed on the device in question, it's good to keep in mind that this method simply checks if any protection is being applied to the device whatsoever (including through a Wi-Fi connection).

Safe Surfer website



Open a web browser app (such as Chrome) and visit the Safe Surfer home website (https://safesurfer.io). It should mention at the top that "You are protected!"



Google SafeSearch



By default, we enforce Google SafeSearch filtering for all devices protected by Safe Surfer. You can check this by visiting the Google SafeSearch menu (https://www.google.com/safesearch). You should see a label that says "Filtering on" with a lock icon:



DNS Leak Test



Safe Surfer uses Google Cloud for its primary filtering servers, and Microsoft Azure for its secondary filtering servers (both do the exact same thing). You can see where a device's Internet domain requests are being forwarded to by visiting DNS Leak Test.

Visit DNS Leak Test (https://dnsleaktest.com) and click the Standard Test button.



This will take a brief moment to complete. The result for the ISP field(s) should return only Google Cloud or Microsoft Azure (or both). If it does, it's highly likely that the device's Internet domain requests are being filtered by us. (The country field simply means where the filtering server itself was located. Safe Surfer never changes the device's public IP address.)

Updated on: 12/11/2024

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