Generic Contribution about parental controls (or about the lack of them)
I had the same issues here with Parental Controls. But I do not want ot use Circle. Actually I used the OpenDNS solution Netgear was offering in the past, and was looking for something similar.
Am not sure if this is of interest to anyone, but here a little hint to what I did on a low budget:
Use your kids devices native solutions for access time control and a certain level of restriction. For instance you can manage quite a lot with Google Family Link on Android or with Apple ScreenTime on Apple devices. Windows also has some solution available.
Get a Raspberry PI (or I got for instance a NanoPi from Aliexpress for 30 bucks or so) and install PiHole on it. PiHole will serve as DHCP and DNS server to your LAN. And it is free. Here´s what I did with it:
Configured it as DHCP Server with "static" leases (this is just for my pleasure, not mandatory for it to work)
Disable DHCP Server on the ORBI
Create Groups (for instance Kids, Adults, "open" Devices like Media Player, TV etc.)
Assign devices to groups
Setup DNS forwading to an external DNS (Google, Cloudflare, you name it,...)
Download blocklists (URL lists) of various categories you´d like to block. Assign the blocklists to the groups you created earlier...
Keep watching the DNS request log to identify pages you may want to block, and just hit "blacklist" besides them... Or add URL´s with Regex expressions...
I am quite happy with the solution, it´s blocking really pretty much everything and allows me to block on some devices and not on others (which is the disadvantage if you throw in the OpenDNS protected DNS in the routers external DNS configuration).
Actually I had a different solution in place first, using a device with 2 NIC´s and placing it as a firewall between the cable modem and the ORBI. There I used OpnSense. It´s also free and offers way more possibliites. You can also use groups, and even assign "blocking times" to specific groups to disable internet access etc. It also serves as DHCP and DNS server if ýou wish (mine did). Also you can use it as VPN server etc. It´s a nice solution actually. But it is way more complex to setup than just hooking a 30 bucks Pihole box into your network. And besides time base blocking, I can do just about everything I need. The OpenVPN implementation on the ORBI serves me well, don´t need this on a sepearte box,... and I am no longer using any NAT into my home network for security reasons.
So, this was just to show an alternative to handle child protection. I kind of prefer it, as I have control over things and do not just put the faith of my kids into the hands of Disney or OpenDNS.
BTW: A big challenge I am having (and this has nothing to do with NetGear, but with Child Protection) is the Wifi Hotspots on the phones of the kids. I haven´t figured a way in Android to disable them. So the kids can theoretically cheat by connecting themselves over the phone´s WIFI. On the phone itself I have methods in place to block content not appropriate for their age. But if they use the laptop, connect it over the shared wifi hotspot from their phones, I´m pretty much chess mate. Even having some kind of protection on the Laptops and Tablets itself, there is ways to circumvent them and the kids are smart,... too smart in areas I whish they wheren´t and vice-versa 😉 So my solution for this: "I catch you sharing your Internet from the phone, and the phone goes 1 week on vacation (the first time). This increments dramatically for repeat offenders" :-))) So far it works.
