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MarkusG's avatar
MarkusG
Aspirant
May 06, 2016

Setting up parental controls for Netgear Router R7000

I have been trying to set up parental controls according to the instructions found here, set the highest filtering level, created by pass accounts.

 

http://kb.netgear.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/25687/~/how-do-i-configure-live-parental-controls-on-my-netgear-router-using-the

 

Our kids computers are still not being blocked from seeing inappropriate content, tried it myself.  By search for something inappropriate (think of something :)) in Google.

 

What am I doing wrong?  Is it only blocking certain web sites, or also search terms?  Our kids don't have by-pass accounts, or the Netgear genie installed.

 

Thanks.

Genie

3 Replies

  • DexterJB's avatar
    DexterJB
    NETGEAR Moderator
    May 12, 2016

    Hi MarkusG,

     

    The Parental Controls should be able to block the websites that fall under the filtered categories that you have set but it will not be able to block search results through search engines like Google.

     

    Regards,

     

    Dexter

    Community Team

    • MarkusG's avatar
      MarkusG
      Aspirant
      May 12, 2016

      Well, what's the point if it doesn't block "inappropriate content" at the keyword level?  Our kids can then still see what they are not supposed to see.

       

      • TheEther's avatar
        TheEther
        Guru
        May 12, 2016
        MarkusG wrote:

        Well, what's the point if it doesn't block "inappropriate content" at the keyword level?  Our kids can then still see what they are not supposed to see.

         

        You're running up against the limitations of a DNS based content filtering system.  The DNS query (which is a request to translate a domain name such as badsite.com to an IP address and is usually the first thing a device sends while attempting to access something on the Internet) is the only thing the system can block.  Unfortunately, a DNS query doesn't contain any URL information, which makes finer-grained blocking impossible.  The R7000 has a separate URL blocking feature but it's crippled by the fact that it won't work on URLs encrypted by https.  Google search uses https by default nowadays, which is great for protecting privacy but terrible for parents trying to protect their kids.

         

        You may be able to make Google safer by turning on Google SafeSearch, but even Google admits that it isn't 100% effective.  Plus, you have no control over it.  If you can't trust Google, then you will either have to block google.com or use something other than Netgear Parental Controls.  Any fine-grained filtering system fundamentally needs access to unencrypted content, so that means either using an intermediate device acting as a proxy or using a filtering service that resides on the device itself.  An example of the former would be a PC running pfSense.  An example of the latter would be Microsoft Family Safety for Windows.  There are plenty of commercial solutions.  A Google search of parental control software is a good starting point.