Enforce Safesearch

By using dnsmasq, you can force all your LAN clients to use Google's Safesearch when doing any searches on their engines.

For this, we need to configure dnsmasq to alias www.google.com (and also perhaps all other Google's domains) to forcesafesearch.google.com. To do so, make sure JFFS + custom config/script options are enabled. Then, create a /jffs/configs/dnsmasq.conf.add script.

There are two different methods through which this can be done.

Method 1: Defining an alias to www.google.com

Put this in your /jffs/configs/dnsmasq.conf.add:

cname=www.google.com,forcesafesearch.google.com 

However, since dnsmasq cannot use upstream DNS to resolve the target hostname (i.e. forcesafesearch.google.com), it must be defined in your hosts file. So, create also a /jffs/configs/hosts.add file with the following:

216.239.38.120 forcesafesearch.google.com

After that, restart dnsmasq to activate your changes:

service restart_dnsmasq

Alternatively:

Method 2: Defining a different IP to www.google.com

Put this in your /jffs/configs/dnsmasq.conf.add:

address=/www.google.com/216.239.38.120

Then, restart dnsmasq:

service restart_dnsmasq

Testing

Then try a nslookup from a computer in your LAN. www.google.com should now resolve to the forcesafesearch's IP:

C:\Users\Merlin>nslookup www.google.com
Server:  router.asus.com
Address:  192.168.10.1

Name:    www.google.com
Addresses:  2607:f8b0:400b:806::1013
          216.239.38.120

Then, any Google search will force their Safe Search option to be enabled.

Note that you might want to check that forcesafesearch.google.com resolves to the same IP as mentioned in this article, as it might possibly change based on your location.