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Guides, answers, and direct support — everything you need to get the most out of Datante.
How-To
Step-by-step guides
Common tasks explained in plain language.
Point your router at Datante
Change one setting on your router and every device in your home is covered.
- 1Log into your router's admin panel (usually 192.168.1.1 or 192.168.0.1).
- 2Find the DNS or WAN settings — look for 'Primary DNS' and 'Secondary DNS'.
- 3Enter your personal Datante resolver IP from the Setup page.
- 4Save and reboot the router.
- 5Return to the Setup page and run the DNS test to confirm it's active.
Switch your blocking level
Go harder or lighter on blocking without changing a single router setting.
- 1Open your dashboard.
- 2Find the Blocking level card and click the current preset (Data, Data+Ads, or Data+Ads+Security).
- 3Select the new level — the change is applied to your resolver within seconds.
- 4Your router keeps pointing at the same DNS address; only the filter rules change.
Pause filtering temporarily
Give yourself a break without touching your router.
- 1Open your dashboard.
- 2Click the Pause button in the control bar.
- 3Choose 15, 30, or 60 minutes.
- 4Filtering suspends immediately and resumes automatically when the timer expires — no action needed.
Read the blocking breakdown chart
Understand what kinds of trackers Datante is stopping and from which of your devices.
- 1Open your dashboard and scroll to the Breakdown section. Stats and the chart refresh automatically every time you land on the page.
- 2The left donut shows blocking by Device Type. The slices are grouped from your actually-detected gear — your Chromecast, Roku, Echo, Fitbit, Nest, and so on — sorted into CTV (TVs and streaming sticks) and IoT (smart-home, wearables, cameras, hubs).
- 3The right donut shows blocking by Data Type — what the tracker was trying to do (ad targeting, ACR, analytics, voice processing, telemetry, etc.).
- 4Use the time range selector (24h / 7d / 30d) above the chart to change the window. The chart and the Top Blocked Domains table update together.
Click any slice to filter the Top Blocked Domains table to only that category. A chip appears at the top of the table showing the active filter — click it to clear and see everything again.
Check which sites are being blocked
See exactly which domains Datante stopped — and why.
- 1Open your dashboard and scroll down to the Top Blocked Domains section.
- 2Each row shows the domain, the number of blocked queries, and its device type and data type classification.
- 3Hover the colour chips for a plain-language description of the category.
- 4Use the time range selector (24h / 7d / 30d) to adjust the window.
Set up weekly digest emails
Get a weekly summary of what Datante blocked delivered to your inbox.
- 1Weekly digest emails are sent automatically every week once your router is connected.
- 2They show total blocks, week-over-week change, and the top offending domains.
- 3No setup needed — emails go to the address on your Datante account.
- 4To control whether the privacy monitoring section appears in the digest, go to Dashboard → Privacy → Email notifications and toggle 'Weekly privacy summary'.
Report a problem
Send a support snapshot directly from any page in the dashboard.
- 1Click the alert-circle icon (⚠) next to your email address in the top navigation bar.
- 2A modal opens showing exactly what will be sent: page path, browser info, and timestamp — no personal data.
- 3Click 'Send report'. You'll receive a reference number to quote if you follow up with support.
- 4If the automatic submission fails, a pre-filled email link appears so you can send the report manually.
The report never includes your email address, household ID, DNS query history, or browsing data.
Undo a policy or pause change
Reverse a blocking level change or pause within 30 seconds.
- 1After switching your blocking level (Data / Data+Ads / Data+Ads+Security) or pausing filtering, a toast notification appears at the bottom of the screen.
- 2Click 'Undo' within 30 seconds to reverse the change.
- 3Clicking Undo twice is safe — the action is applied only once.
- 4After 30 seconds the toast disappears and the change is permanent (you can still switch manually).
Datante works at the DNS layer — the address book your router uses to translate domain names into IP addresses. When your router points its DNS at us, every lookup that comes from a tracking, advertising, or surveillance domain gets blocked before it ever reaches your device. Every phone, TV, speaker, and laptop behind that router is covered with zero software to install.
No. Data and Data+Ads blocking leave streaming content delivery completely untouched — only the ad-serving and tracking layers are filtered. Data+Ads+Security blocking is more aggressive and may interrupt a small number of ad-supported free services (like Pluto TV's free live tier). If something breaks, use the Pause button on your dashboard to suspend filtering for 15, 30, or 60 minutes.
Data blocks data trackers, cross-site trackers, fingerprinters, IoT telemetry, data brokers, CTV ads, and ACR. Data+Ads adds advertising blocking across all devices. Data+Ads+Security adds YouTube-specific ad blocking, malware detection, and sophisticated technical filtering, and makes search and YouTube family-friendly. You can switch instantly from the dashboard at any time.
The setup page includes a DNS resolver test — it confirms your router is sending queries through Datante. Once that passes, the dashboard shows live blocking counts. Within minutes of pointing your router's DNS at us you should see your first blocked domains appear.
Yes — the Pause button on the dashboard suspends filtering for 15, 30, or 60 minutes and resumes automatically. You don't need to change any router settings. It's there for situations like a specific app complaining, or giving a guest temporary unrestricted access.
Device names come from matching the domains each device queries against Datante's fingerprint database. Devices that only contact generic infrastructure (OS update servers, ISP DNS) may not match a known signature yet. They're still fully protected — just not labeled. If you know what a device is, ignore it; detection improves as more query patterns accumulate.
Some routers and ISP-provided gateways lock the DNS field. Workarounds include setting DNS at the DHCP level if your router exposes it, using a DNS-capable mesh node as the upstream, or switching the DNS on individual devices. Email us at support@datante.com and we'll find the right path for your specific hardware.
These carriers use Carrier-Grade NAT (CGNAT) and some intercept or override DNS traffic entirely. Datante detects known CGNAT providers during setup and shows a callout. Custom DNS can still work on many of them — contact support and we'll walk through the options for your specific carrier.
Automatically — every time you open the dashboard the stats and the device chart fetch a fresh snapshot, so you never need to hit reload to see the latest blocks. You can also click the Refresh button to force an immediate re-pull. The 24-hour view gives hourly resolution; 7-day and 30-day views aggregate by calendar day. Data comes directly from your DNS resolver — there's no internal database caching the counts.
Every connected device queries a distinctive set of domains as it phones home. Datante matches those domain patterns against a fingerprint library of common smart-home gear (streaming sticks, smart TVs, voice assistants, fitness trackers, doorbells, hubs, and more) and labels the device automatically. Recognised devices appear by brand and model in your device cards, and they're grouped on the breakdown chart by Device Type — CTV on one side, IoT on the other — so the chart matches what you actually own. Devices that haven't been fingerprinted yet still get blocked; they just show as a LAN IP until enough of their query pattern lands.
Subscriptions renew automatically. If a payment fails, filtering continues for a short grace period before the account is paused. You can manage billing, update your card, or cancel any time through the Billing portal on your dashboard.
Yes — the optional Datante Remote desktop extension puts the same pause controls as the phone remote in your browser toolbar. Download the ZIP from Dashboard → Privacy → Desktop extension and load it via chrome://extensions (enable Developer mode, then Load unpacked). It uses your existing Datante sign-in — if you're logged in to datante.com in that browser, the pause controls just work, with no pairing codes. You can pause the whole home for 15, 30, or 60 minutes and resume with one click. The extension has no analytics of its own — it cannot see your tabs, history, or page content. The only analytics event related to the extension is a server-side download event fired when you click the ZIP download button in your dashboard.
Datante collects a small set of server-side product events to measure service reliability and understand how features are used. These events are never sent from your browser — they are fired server-side by Datante's own infrastructure, so browser ad-blockers and DNS filtering cannot intercept them. Events collected include: page views on public pages (anonymous session ID only), blocking level changes, filtering pause/resume, subscription activation, and extension ZIP downloads. Events never include your DNS query history, browsing history, URL query-string parameters, IP address, search queries, AI prompts, passwords, or any device-level data. If you opt out of activity recording under Privacy settings, no events are sent at all. Operator accounts are excluded from tracking automatically. See the full list of collected and never-collected fields on our Privacy page.
Events collected: page_view (anonymous, path only — no query strings), preset_changed (from/to preset names), filtering_paused, filtering_resumed, subscription_activated, extension_downloaded. What is NEVER collected in any event: DNS query history or blocked-domain lists, browsing history or previously visited URLs, URL query-string parameters, page content or DOM snapshots, search queries, AI prompts or responses, session tokens or API keys, IndexedDB or localStorage contents, household ID or resolver IP. To opt out entirely, go to Dashboard → Account → Privacy and enable 'Disable activity recording'.
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