Instagram domain continuously appearing

[stanthemam]

Several Instagram domains are constantly appearing in my request lists. Nobody in my home has an Instagram account so I'm left wondering why it keeps popping up. Sometimes when I surf Facebook some Instagram videos show up in my news feed however I never actually click on them, could this be the reason for it to appear?

[rotblitz]

"could this be the reason for it to appear?"

Yes, this and also mainly the fact that DNS queries are usually not raised by humans, but by networking programs.  These have their own mind, much different from yours.  You seem to think that a domain appears in your OpenDNS stats only if one typed it in the browser address line or clicked a related link?  This is wrong, absolutely wrong!

What you can do to almost eliminate these "unwanted" domains in your OpenDNS stats is to disable DNS prefetching in the browsers.

[stanthemam]

I figured this was why, but I am not too tech savvy so I just thought I would double check. Sorry to be a pest but do you mind explaining how do disable prefetching on a blackberry z10 and an iPhone browser? And will disabling this feature effect anything else?

[rotblitz]

"how do disable prefetching on a blackberry z10 and an iPhone browser?"

You want to disable it in mobile devices?  Do you surf a lot on them?  These may not be the culprit of these "unwanted" entries.

Whatever, I don't know for Blackberry, but I would search the internet for it like:

[OS] [browser type] how to disable DNS prefetching

...and follow the instructions you found.

For iOS:  Settings > Safari > disable "Preload Top Hit"

"And will disabling this feature effect anything else?"

Yes, there will be less entries in your OpenDNS domain stats which have never been accessed.  And DNS results and web content is no longer preloaded/prefetched which may make surfing a bit of a tenth of a second or so slower in rare cases.

[stanthemam]

Sorry I had forgot to mention that the only way we surf is via mobile device. I had hoped that these would be the culprit for the unwanted entries as I can't think of another reason it would be popping up. Thanks for your help!

[rotblitz]

Sure, if you use such toys a lot for surfing, then they must be the culprit.  I don't like to use mobile devices for surfing.  Their screen and their keyboard is just far too small for this purpose. :(  The only comfortable way to surf and to type texts is using a normal monitor and keyboard for me.

So yes, disable DNS prefetching on your mobile devices to see if it becomes better with the stats.

[stanthemam]

I'm the opposite, using a bigge screen gives me a headache! I was able to successfully disable the DNS prefetching for my iPhone, but I can't seem to do so on the blackberry z10. I've looked through all of the browser settings as well as the general phone settings and there doesn't seem to be such option. I have tried googling it as well but have been unsuccessful.