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Parental control not working
Hi
I have been using OpenDNS only as Parental controls in Netgear Genie app have never worked. I would prefer to use Netgear genie so i have removed my network from the OpenDNS and I am trying to get Netgear genie parental controls to work. It states it is enabled and I have put the settings to moderate. When I search porn it allows me to open any porn site without a problem. no matter what I search it doesn't bring up the blocked page like it did when I only had OpenDNS doing the job. Please help :)
49 Replies
Hi @sapphirestorm,
1. Are all the devices affected (not being filtered)?
2. Please check the DNS values on the router UI and make sure the values are set to OpenDNS which are 208.67.222.222 and 208.67.220.220.
3. Have you tried setting the filtering level to "High" and check if there are changes?
Regards,
Dexter
Community Team
I also have the same problem. I use Netgear Genie to set individual parental control levels, and even level 5 (high) seems to block absolutely nothing. The DNS servers in the router are the correct OpenDNS ones.
Like the OP, the only thing that works is to add my network to OpenDNS and set the whole thing to High. There are devices on my network for which I want that, but not the whole thing.Hi @bluegilldude,
1. What is the model number and firmware version of your router?
2. What version of NETGEAR Genie do you have installed?
3. Have you tried setting the filtering level on another device?
Regards,
Dexter
Community Team
- I am trying to log into OpenDNS account but says the email is invalid. I have tried putting a 15 digit password in but just says invalid email. Any ideas? Thank you.
try one capital letter, one digit and one unusal digit like !@# .. I had to play till I found out what to do... took me weeks.
Hi @Rodwirral,
1. Do you already have an existing OpenDNS account?
2. Have you tried using another email address?
3. Have you tried registering using another device (another computer, smartphone, tablet)?
4. What is the model number and firmware version of the router?
5. What version of NETGEAR Genie do you have installed?
Regards,
Dexter
Community Team
I think I found a workaround. I have been having this same problem. I am trying to limit my childrens devices from accessing inappropriate content. If I go to thier devices individually and set their levels to the highest settings it blocks nothing. What I found is if I go about it backwards it works. I set my router level to Moderate, then mine and my wifes devices to low, we are able to access anything we want and then all other devices are not able to. This doesn't solve the problem, but it's a work around and it achieves the same goal.
I hope this helps others.
This is how I set mine up - I set custom router level decisions around what to block and what to allow through, then using the ios app switched my and my wifes devices to low and we can access anything we like whereas the kids are restricted to content that we allow.
Another workaround that I'm yet to try is to manually block all search engines as well as youtube and a few other specific sites and get the kids to use www.kiddle.co as their main search engine. It seems reasonably reliable from what I've seen and will give them the freedom to search for stuff without them seeing anything innapropriate, as they would on google, bing etc.
- I get the same error "invalid email address " so I creates a new account and it worked kinda :( ...it told me to confirm email :) but when I went to that email address there was no email. I did this about 100 x still nothing. Have you figured anything out yet?
Hi Seanpaul76,
1. What is the model number and firmware version of your router?
2. Have you tried setting up Parental Controls using another device?
3. What version of NETGEAR Genie do you have installed?
4. Did you already have Parental Controls setup before?
Regards,
Dexter
Community Team
- I have been trying to get parental controls to work for days. I set the default to High and nothing is blocked on any device. I have tried PC and iPhone genie app:
Router: R8000
Firmware V1.0.2.44
iPhone genie app version 2.4.24
Seems like there are no answers??? Please help. I hate to have to buy a new router - Well, I just updated the firmware to V1.0.3.4 and nothing has changed. I turned parental controls off then on again and nothing is blocked.
Not happy with Netgear at the moment. Hopefully this can be corrected you need to download the netgear genie software for pc or mac.
install it.
from inside this app you need to register on open dns.
user name must be any name not email id
password must be like this Agtekis7,
give ur email id
click register.
then log in in the same app.
it checks if the netgear router has got the parental control software, if yes it asks you to click to enable it, when it enables it sets the DNS nos on its own.
else it says router not compatible.
so later everytime you click parental controls, it opens the open dns page for blocking settings
Parental controls not working for me either. I hope there's a fix otherwise this is just a wasted feature.
Hi,
Kindly let me know if i can be of any help to set it up for you,
you will need to be on Team viewer for me to do a remote setup.
Thankyou,
Ashfaq
- I appreciate the offers to help. It still doesn't work. I will try to engage Netgear support one more time
I just purchased an AC1900 and I have the same problem. I've performed a firmware update to the latest and greatest and there is no blocking anything on this router. All I wanted to do is prevent access to any URL that contained a particular word but that didn't work then I tried to block an entire domain like www.facebook.com and that didn't do anything either. Looks like I'll be returning it and getting a different brand.
I managed to get it to work by the advice of others here. I set the default level of the parental controls to HIGH. I then verified that it was working. i.e. I could not get to social media sites or get to x-rated content. Then, I set individually the desired level for a device to LOW. I was then able to get to social media sites on that device, but was still restricted on other devices. This seems to be the opposite of how it ought to work, but it still accomplishes what I need.