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The sites were blocked before I did that and the instructions to do that were from the Netgear Community forum. I just deleted that, rebooted the router, cleared the cookies, yet the sites are still blocked. Is there anything else I can do?
Attached is the screenshot of the pause option under Parental Controls.
Thanks for taking the time to make that screen shot. This is embarrassing, but I do not have any idea what that symbol means:
Put the entire system on "Pause" (i.e. nobody can do anything), or
Stop the Parental Controls feature temporarily.
I agree with @FURRYe38 . Factory Reset the Orbi and configure it using only the web interface. Do not even open the Orbi app. If at any time during the setup there is a choice to enable Armor or Parental Controls, say, "no thanks".
There is, if you reset the router and let it come to ready, in a web browser, 192.168.1.1, a the bottom of this web page there will be a link that says, don't have a mobile device, select here, will begin the setup wizard for the RBR router...
This is a firewall problem, however, when I searched how to change the firewall settings I found that there is no firewall setting in the Orbi. Is this true????
This is a firewall problem, however, when I searched how to change the firewall settings I found that there is no firewall setting in the Orbi. Is this true????
This is not a firewall problem. Firewalls prevent unwanted connections. When connected to the internet, the Orbi router has a public IP address, much like a public telephone number, street address, front doorbell. Anyone in the world can attempt to connect to any port on any public IP address, just as anyone in the world can attempt to call a telephone number, send a letter to a street address, or ring a door bell. The Orbi firewall rejects all connection attempts unless the user has specifically told the router to accept one. This is also the default behavior of Windows and Mac computers.
As analogies, when the phone rings, you can decide whether to answer it or not - but you cannot stop it from ringing. When a litter appears in the mailbox, you can decide not to open it. When the doorbell rings, you can decide not to answer the door. You are the firewall.
Every time a user device makes a connection to a resource on the internet, the device opens a connection through the router to the internet address and the remote service uses that connection to respond. Amazon cannot send a web page to your browser unless you connect to Amazon first. (Try it. Open Chrome and see how many web pages appear by themselves. None.)
The consensus on the forum appears to be that some additional function on the Orbi is blocking certain web sites (but apparently not all web sites). This is the sort of thing that Smart Parental Controls (SPC) does, so the advice is to get the router operating without SPC enabled. Thus the advice to perform a Factory Reset and then make a web connection to the router and select that option toward the bottom of the page, "I do not have a smartphone." which opens the web based configuration. (It is none of Netgear's damn busniess whether I own a smartphone or not. I simply do not want to use it to set up the router!" Never open the Orbi app until testing whether those web pages are blocked or not.
The websites work when I use a VPN. If that is the case, do you know how I can fix this via the router? I do not want to have to use a VPN on every device.
When a device uses a VPN, it opens an encrypted tunnel through the router to the VPN hosting service. The router has no way to observe or control what goes on inside the tunnel. Thus, the router does not know if the user is using a web browser, transferring music, opening telnet sessions... whatever. That is the purpose of a VPN.
We know that by itself, the Orbi router does not block web sites. Our routers can open all of those 'blocked' web sites. And, by coincidence, we do not have Parental Controls enabled on our systems. Thus the suspicion that making sure that Parental Controls are not enabled on the router is the solution.
Does selecting the link "I do not have a smartphone" after a Factory Reset not let you set up the router?
The only devices that can use a VPN to open web pages are devices that run web browsers. Printers, thermostats, smart plugs, light bulbs, etc. etc. have no need of a VPN. How many devices need to access these specific web sites?
I called my Internet provider again, twice today, and I found out that there is a newer modem that is available. The replacement modem I received last week was the same model as the previous one. I am going to swap the modem tomorrow and I will see if that works. I will post an update.
I got a completely different modem from my Internet provider and I connected it...those blocked e-commerce websites are coming through! I hope this stays working!
