Parental controls - what have you found that's reliable.

OspreyO · 2 Feb 2020 at 16:48

What hardware (routers) have you used for parental controls that you have found worked well at least been reliable in terms of hardware. The filtering is subjective and hard to quantify. So I don't want to get into that.

The one I use works well enough but the UI is brutal and often when something is reconnecting to it, they are blocked for no reason. I end up reconfiguring that people until it starts working. I'd like one a bit more robust on the hardware/connection side.

I don't really want to have one that I have to manually set up. Don't have the time.Whitelists and open source stuff I'm not interested in. The default parental controls on my routers is too basic. I want a specialist product.

Currently I have VM hub in bridge mode with two different routers off it. One for adults the other for the kids (filtered custom parental router).

WJA96 · 2 Feb 2020 at 20:53

Untangle.

OspreyO · 2 Feb 2020 at 22:47

That seems like the Rolls Royce of solutions even over spec'ed. Do you use that at home or in at work?

OspreyO · 2 Feb 2020 at 22:48

Looks very impressive. More so because of all the videos and forums supporting it which is good sign of a product.

Avalon · 3 Feb 2020 at 02:36

I found talking to my children and discussing things with them has largely removed the need for filtering, that said my son did use a few choice search terms before we got to this stage and the look of absolute horror on his face was priceless, sooner or later they'll discover ways to bypass whatever you put in place anyway - even if you use untangle. Speaking of which, untangle or any of the similar linux based router/UTM distro's can run on inexpensive hardware, but the power costs can put the TCO up significantly over the long term.

WJA96 · 3 Feb 2020 at 04:09

OspreyO said:
That seems like the Rolls Royce of solutions even over spec'ed. Do you use that at home or in at work?

I install it for other people. I don’t have children, so no need at home.

WJA96 · 3 Feb 2020 at 04:32

Avalon said:
I found talking to my children and discussing things with them has largely removed the need for filtering, that said my son did use a few choice search terms before we got to this stage and the look of absolute horror on his face was priceless, sooner or later they'll discover ways to bypass whatever you put in place anyway - even if you use untangle. Speaking of which, untangle or any of the similar linux based router/UTM distro's can run on inexpensive hardware, but the power costs can put the TCO up significantly over the long term.

Untangle isn’t perfect, by a long shot, but for £50 per year its incredible value for money (or free if you don’t want the automatic app updates). As regards bypassing Untangle, I’m sure it’s possible but it’s definitely rather more difficult than anything from BT or Netgear.

And as regards power usage, we usually run it on a Supermicro Xeon Server or a QNAP NAS/NVR, which is indeed quite expensive to run, but if you’re running cameras recording 24/7 it’s a necessity anyway. If you run it on Untangle’s own hardware (made by Protectli) then based on the supplied power supply specs it’s 36W maximum continuous compared to 24W for a BT Homehub, 33W for an ASUS AC-68U or 50W for a Netgear Nighthawk. A Draytek Vigor 130 is 24W maximum continuous, so it’s 50W absolute maximum and they don’t usually pull maximum power.

OspreyO · 3 Feb 2020 at 08:18

If I run a Linux based system I'm then into a lot of config and tweaking. I

I was running a school or club or small office I can see the value in untangle. But for home use it seems overkill. Unless you have deep pockets. I'm not saying it's expensive, but it's just not a budget solution.

The router I'm running works fine in terms of filtering and doesn't have yearly fee. But some days it's very hard to get an existing device to reconnect to it.

I'm thinking something more along the lines of Disney Circle but I'm not interested in the Disney product.

chroniclard · 3 Feb 2020 at 08:41

I use opendns, seems fairly effective. Plus Microsoft family for screen time.

WJA96 · 3 Feb 2020 at 10:06

OspreyO said:
If I run a Linux based system I'm then into a lot of config and tweaking. I

I was running a school or club or small office I can see the value in untangle. But for home use it seems overkill. Unless you have deep pockets. I'm not saying it's expensive, but it's just not a budget solution.

The router I'm running works fine in terms of filtering and doesn't have yearly fee. But some days it's very hard to get an existing device to reconnect to it.

I'm thinking something more along the lines of Disney Circle but I'm not interested in the Disney product.

Pretty much every consumer router is running Linux of some description. If you buy an Untangle appliance it comes fully set up. if you pay the licence fee then you get all the updates applied automatically on a daily basis without user intervention. If you choose not to pay the annual fee you don’t get any updates automatically but you can download the latest version at any time. It’s no more hassle than updating anything really.

While I’m definitely not implying you’re a bad parent because you won’t spend $50 a year on licences, it never fails to amaze me that people profess to wanting to keep their home/network/children safe online then complain when it’s costs so little to keep a properly robust system updated.

OspreyO · 3 Feb 2020 at 11:52

I never said cost was an issue and even if it was the cost isn't only the €50 sub.
That's a bit like saying a task will take 2 mins then take 30 mins to explain it.

My issue is not safety, its that re-connections to the router (I have already invested in) aren't robust.
The other functionality is great, it has a quirky but good phone app which mostly how I interact with it.

When you spend all day head in Windows Servers/admin and development, last thing I want is deja vu at home.
Also the illiterate other half has to be able to use it.

But Untangle looks fantastic no argument there.

OspreyO · 3 Feb 2020 at 11:56

chroniclard said:
I use opendns, seems fairly effective. Plus Microsoft family for screen time.

One of the kids managed to get around the Microsoft family, though I seem to have blocked him now. Typical awkward MS UI.
Other wise I like it. Though I dislike how they changed to it requires a Microsoft email account and personal details like age to use it.
It worked well with Kids corner on Lumia phones. Before they abandoned that, and the phones. Works well on Xbox.