Why Parental Controls on router fails pathetically ? And how to get it right.

Here is a deeper analysis of ‘Parental Control’ feature on existing Wi-Fi routers. Long read, but worth it for anyone who wishes to understand underlying technology and its pitfalls.

Kids nowadays have their personal devices and they are always connected to the Internet. Parents have serious concerns over kids online activities and want to ensure online safety.

Out of multiple ways to configure ‘Parental Control’, One of the good ways is to set up ‘Parental Control’ on Home Wi-Fi router and secure every kid’s device. Unfortunately, almost all the routers available in market fails terribly to do this in right way. Below are examples to showcase how outdated is Parental Controls on existing routers.

Blacklisting URLs – Almost every router provides this option to blacklist a URL and to block access to given site on kids devices.

Downside of Blacklisting –

The Internet is evolving at a faster pace that parents cannot catch up. It’s just impossible to enter millions of adult sites URL into router configuration.
Max 10 to 20 blacklisted URLs can be added by parents.

With huge list of adult/mature sites, blacklisting URLS on router defeats the sole purpose of protecting kids online and providing any safety net.

DNS based Protection – Newer technologies like OpenDNS FamilyShield, Norton ConnectSafe, Yandex.DNS family, Comodo Secure DNS and much more rely on DNS-based blocking. This is the better way and the most effective technique.

The way it works is, DNS request made by devices are checked against latest adult websites and blocked if they fall into that category. You see a blocking page that shows the restrictions.

Basic configuration involves setting up DNS servers IP address on the router and thereby redirecting all DNS request to one of the above DNS providers. Here is a short tutorial for same.

Downside of setting up any of the DNS technology –

Difficult to set up – Not all parents can do this. Rather many parents are unaware of such a thing that exist and can use it for free. Setting it up on your router is added hurdle that keeps away from using this tech.

Overriding DNS on the device – DNS mechanism can be overridden on the device level. Kids/Anyone can change DNS servers IP address on laptop/mobile to Google’s IP (8.8.8.8) and then all DNS request goes to Google and no filtering happens. A simple technique to bypass DNS based protection.

Blocks only pornographic sites by default – DNS technologies like OpenDNS blocks only pornographic sites by default. There are several web categories that are open and thinking from a parent’s perspective, they should have been blocked by default. E.g. drugs, suicide, war, weapons, dating, bikini, lingerie, alcohol, and much more.
Global settings that block everyone at home – Setting up OpenDNS or another service for adult content filtering, blocks the content for the entire family. It is a router level settings and thus content filtering applies to everyone in the family. Parents, guest, or anyone who wish to visit adult/mature content sites gets blocked away.
IP Based websites (no assigned domain names) goes unnoticed– There are plenty of servers out there that allow downloads of adult or mature content. Anyone can host a server if a public IP address is available and make it available to the world.

DNS-Based protections like OpenDNS and other just can’t handle this. As no DNS requests are made, nothing gets filtered and no blocking pages are shown.
Unique Public IP required for your home – OpenDNS and other DNS technologies require a unique public IP to configure your account on their sites. As you might be aware, IPv4 addresses are getting exhausted, and many of ISPs do NOT assign unique addresses, thereby either blocking you to create/configure your account or you being locking everyone in your neighborhood (those who share same public IP) who wish to use the same service. A much deeper problem for OpenDNS and another DNS tech to solve; parents don’t have a clue of this.

TOR and VPN as bypassing mechanism for Parental Control –

Smart kids/employees can install TOR Browser to bypass all content filtering mechanism and browse what they want. Any site you browse using TOR browser goes through an encrypted tunnel and goes undetected on existing router.

VPN is another way to bypass content filtering restrictions on the router. There are free VPN services or browsers like Opera that integrates VPN right into the product. Using any of these can bypass DNS based filtering configured on the router.

Scheduled time for Internet Access

Many of the routers comes with a scheduler to allow/block Internet access at the specified time of the day.

First of all, it needs to be configured by parents. Anything that adds an extra step to configure and maintain is going to be the no-no by parents
Scheduled locking of the Internet access is static and inflexible. Does not take care of public holidays, vacations, time-offs and thus parents have to open up the gates too often. The result is that parents tend to allow Internet access all-time for kids.

Filtering YouTube and Google Search – None of the Wi-Fi routers filters YouTube. YouTube is the great source for learning and thus blocking it is a total disaster for kids. Same with Google Search.

No out-of-the-box child-safe configuration on routers – Almost none of the routers in the market provide out-of-the-box parental control.

Parents are required to configure, blacklisting URL, Schedule time to block the Internet access, or create kids accounts with age-based tagging. If you try to setup OpenDNS or any of the DNS based protection, that further adds the complexity. Managing and maintaining this is not an easy task either.

The outcome is that either parent doesn’t set up ‘Parental Controls’ or poorly configured the system that defeats the purpose.

Parents need a reliable system – And we have built it!

NetSequre – Total Internet Security is Next generation Wi-Fi router that offers Internet Security and Online Child Protection for all connected devices.

Separate Child-safe Wi-Fi for kids devices – Preconfigured child-safe Wi-Fi to block all unwanted content for kids. Just connect kids devices to this Wi-Fi and protection is ON. Primary Wi-Fi and Guest Wi-Fi are separate and content filtering rules differ for each Wi-Fi. Thus on the same router, parents are free to browse anything online, whereas kids devices get restricted access.

Advanced DNS technology for child-safety – Our DNS servers blocks 20+ web categories by default and not the just pornographic site. Almost 30M websites are blocked for adult content. We ensure newer adult sites are blocked and that we provide up-to-date protection. The aim is to give peace of mind to busy parents.

DNS + Firewall that can’t be bypassed – With advanced firewall running on NetSequre router, overriding DNS settings on the device cannot bypass the content filtering. NetSequre enforces to use our DNS server for content filtering.

Filtering YouTube and Google Search – NetSequre integrates with Google Services to provide content filtering on YouTube and Google Search. YouTube adult/mature content gets filtered out and this restriction cannot be turned-off on any device or using any mechanism.

Blocks TOR and VPN – NetSequre router blocks network traffic to TOR and VPN on child-safe Wi-Fi thereby blocking all bypassing techniques.

Blocks Torrent Downloads. Restrict downloads using Torrent client.

Blocks unnamed domains – NetSequre blocks traffic going to unnamed servers (without any domain name). With advanced firewall techniques, NetSequre does the magic.

Additional Web-categories to block with a single click – NetSequre provides additional 10+ web categories like shopping, web-chat, web-email, online games and more to block with a single click. Just tick the checkbox and done. All of these are pre-configured to block by default.

Blocking WhatsApp and Skype – NetSequre router blocks Whatsapp and Skype on child-safe Wi-Fi

Out-of-the-box ready router – Zero configuration required for parents to set it up. Just connect kids device to Child-safe Wi-Fi and that’s it. All required protection is ON.

Multi-Vendor Router Support

NetSequre software/firmware can be installed on various available routers like TP-Link, Netgear, D-Link, Asus, Linksys and many more.

You select hardware of your choice based on performance or price.

Upgrade your home/office router for NetSequre firmware and get started now. Learn more.

Conclusion:

Wi-Fi routers available in the market that claim ‘Parental Control’ feature are just for name sake and do no real good.
NetSequre – Total Internet Security solves the key problems with Parental Controls to give it a full justification.

NetSequre - Total Internet Security Router

Why Parental Controls on router fails pathetically ? And how to get it right.

Here is a deeper analysis of ‘Parental Control’ feature on existing Wi-Fi routers. Long read, but worth it for anyone who wishes to understand underlying technology and its pitfalls.

Kids nowadays have their personal devices and they are always connected to the Internet. Parents have serious concerns over kids online activities and want to ensure online safety.

Blacklisting URLs – Almost every router provides this option to blacklist a URL and to block access to given site on kids devices.

Downside of Blacklisting –

The Internet is evolving at a faster pace that parents cannot catch up. It’s just impossible to enter millions of adult sites URL into router configuration.

Max 10 to 20 blacklisted URLs can be added by parents.

With huge list of adult/mature sites, blacklisting URLS on router defeats the sole purpose of protecting kids online and providing any safety net.

DNS based Protection – Newer technologies like OpenDNS FamilyShield, Norton ConnectSafe, Yandex.DNS family, Comodo Secure DNS and much more rely on DNS-based blocking. This is the better way and the most effective technique.

The way it works is, DNS request made by devices are checked against latest adult websites and blocked if they fall into that category. You see a blocking page that shows the restrictions.

Basic configuration involves setting up DNS servers IP address on the router and thereby redirecting all DNS request to one of the above DNS providers. Here is a short tutorial for same.

Downside of setting up any of the DNS technology –

Difficult to set up – Not all parents can do this. Rather many parents are unaware of such a thing that exist and can use it for free. Setting it up on your router is added hurdle that keeps away from using this tech.

Overriding DNS on the device – DNS mechanism can be overridden on the device level. Kids/Anyone can change DNS servers IP address on laptop/mobile to Google’s IP (8.8.8.8) and then all DNS request goes to Google and no filtering happens. A simple technique to bypass DNS based protection.

TOR and VPN as bypassing mechanism for Parental Control –

Smart kids/employees can install TOR Browser to bypass all content filtering mechanism and browse what they want. Any site you browse using TOR browser goes through an encrypted tunnel and goes undetected on existing router.

VPN is another way to bypass content filtering restrictions on the router. There are free VPN services or browsers like Opera that integrates VPN right into the product. Using any of these can bypass DNS based filtering configured on the router.

Scheduled time for Internet Access

Many of the routers comes with a scheduler to allow/block Internet access at the specified time of the day.

First of all, it needs to be configured by parents. Anything that adds an extra step to configure and maintain is going to be the no-no by parents

Scheduled locking of the Internet access is static and inflexible. Does not take care of public holidays, vacations, time-offs and thus parents have to open up the gates too often. The result is that parents tend to allow Internet access all-time for kids.

Filtering YouTube and Google Search – None of the Wi-Fi routers filters YouTube. YouTube is the great source for learning and thus blocking it is a total disaster for kids. Same with Google Search.

No out-of-the-box child-safe configuration on routers – Almost none of the routers in the market provide out-of-the-box parental control.

The outcome is that either parent doesn’t set up ‘Parental Controls’ or poorly configured the system that defeats the purpose.

Parents need a reliable system – And we have built it!

NetSequre – Total Internet Security is Next generation Wi-Fi router that offers Internet Security and Online Child Protection for all connected devices.

DNS + Firewall that can’t be bypassed – With advanced firewall running on NetSequre router, overriding DNS settings on the device cannot bypass the content filtering. NetSequre enforces to use our DNS server for content filtering.

Filtering YouTube and Google Search – NetSequre integrates with Google Services to provide content filtering on YouTube and Google Search. YouTube adult/mature content gets filtered out and this restriction cannot be turned-off on any device or using any mechanism.

Blocks TOR and VPN – NetSequre router blocks network traffic to TOR and VPN on child-safe Wi-Fi thereby blocking all bypassing techniques.

Blocks Torrent Downloads. Restrict downloads using Torrent client.

Blocks unnamed domains – NetSequre blocks traffic going to unnamed servers (without any domain name). With advanced firewall techniques, NetSequre does the magic.

Additional Web-categories to block with a single click – NetSequre provides additional 10+ web categories like shopping, web-chat, web-email, online games and more to block with a single click. Just tick the checkbox and done. All of these are pre-configured to block by default.

Blocking WhatsApp and Skype – NetSequre router blocks Whatsapp and Skype on child-safe Wi-Fi

Out-of-the-box ready router – Zero configuration required for parents to set it up. Just connect kids device to Child-safe Wi-Fi and that’s it. All required protection is ON.

Multi-Vendor Router Support

NetSequre software/firmware can be installed on various available routers like TP-Link, Netgear, D-Link, Asus, Linksys and many more.

You select hardware of your choice based on performance or price.

Upgrade your home/office router for NetSequre firmware and get started now. Learn more.

Conclusion:

Wi-Fi routers available in the market that claim ‘Parental Control’ feature are just for name sake and do no real good.NetSequre – Total Internet Security solves the key problems with Parental Controls to give it a full justification.

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Wi-Fi routers available in the market that claim ‘Parental Control’ feature are just for name sake and do no real good.
NetSequre – Total Internet Security solves the key problems with Parental Controls to give it a full justification.