Orbi RBR50 / RBK50 AC3000 V2.7.4.24 Router Site Blocking Just Does Not Work?

Update for the community - Customer Support Offered:

Spoke with the team and they immediately stated that 'https' was the reason for the failed feature.

I pointed out that the user manual it came with, plus the current manual available online has no mention of this weakness.

I also told them this was a kind of false advertising; especially if they are aware of the issue and most of their products contain this now 'defunct' feature, but no readily available documentation is forthcoming about the weakness of this feature. Https has been around for years before I bought my router and many new routers are still being sold with these features included.

They responded that they are now aware of the issue with a 'kb' note on it that has been raised for higher attention to address the downfall in advice online and in in manuals.

I've also been given a customer service ref number and will be contacted shortly with an update after the matter is elevated to the next level of support.

So no quick fix, but possibly a systemic long term fix for poor customers frustrated paying for routers and annual 'Circle Parental Controls' that are vulnerable from both a simple MAC address spoofing technique and the Website Access Blocking that is useless against https (most websites).

This should force Netgear to come up with more transparency in their advertising/manuals and address the legacy features that have no place in their firmware. Hopefully that means more room for code that is actually useful. I'm happy to pay for a decent router system and  $50/year...if it actually works!

More to follow on that.....

......and yes, my son is disciplined in an open and honest way - but we know that these days, screens are like 'an instant fix' like drugs/fast food/coffee; their ubiquity is unmatched by most other useful commodities now (except for perhaps air and water!). Despite this, the technology remains evolving at a speed far quicker than we can control it in order to avoid undesired side-effects. The library and text books in my sons school are now mostly replaced by the parental requirement to provide a laptop/macbook/PC. However, I've yet to find a school that provides the required protections that should come along with that. It's like giving your kids a basket of food containing everything they need...fresh fruits, vegetables, water etc. and then adding burgers, fries, soda, heroin and cocaine all in the same basket with no barriers; what will they try? Who's responsibility is it to provide the barrier to regulate a child's use and hence sleep/mental health? That's the question. 

If you're a positive person (I like to think I am), then there's so much opportunity to remedy this. Apple has tried with 'Screentime'. Microsoft has tried with the 'Family' app. Countless companies with routers that allow you to 'route what data you'd like'? Third party apps a plenty too (with big money attached/month). Maybe it's time governments start to legislate and make this control a responsibility of the providers of the 'baskets of consumables'. 

Let's face it, if you supply sleep depriving/life threatening drugs to children, you're going to prison in most parts of the world.

If you supply a computer and internet access to a child, it's considered normal and even essential....so will the parents be going to prison one day when the guns then appear in the school or when the child flops out and turns to crime? Or somebody else? 

A long blah I know, but some food for thought. Maybe I've started something here that might get heard.

Gav