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How do you do parental controls in 2021?

9 points by zumafan ↗ HN
I’m a dev so my networking is a bit rusty, but I’m curious if anyone has found the solution to effective parental controls?

We’re having trouble with our son sneaking the internet and we’ve become concerned about what he’s doing. We’re not looking for a snooping tool as we will be having regular communication with him as to what we’re doing and what our expectations are, but he’s definitely having trouble controlling his urges and we want a little physical help to go along with the counselling and communication.

Up until now we’ve used iOS screen time but it’s become too easy for him to get around so I’m thinking about something at the router level. Is there a decent solution here? Googling and online reviews haven’t given me much hope.

6 comments

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kuz8
I use:

Mikrotik router rules for specific IPs shutting down internet at specific times (advanced setup with schedules and firewall rules)

Android FamilyLink for phones and tablets with set daily limits

Windows Family for w10 with set daily limits

Adult accounts are password/pin protected

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Cadwhisker
I have 2x wifi access points; one for the adults and one for the kids. The kids' one is on a mains power timer.

As for content, that's tough and I don't have an easy answer.

qubex
That’s delightfully brutal and… soviet in design philosophy.
runjake
I run an Eero with Eero Secure because it works well enough and I don’t want to mess around with manual firewall rules and pi-hole porn blocklist’s because that’s what I do all day.

I’ve tried everything else. NextDNS was another good option but required too much fiddling and client configuration.

With Eero I just set up device profiles with porn and malware filters and time schedules and I don’t have to touch it.

giantg2
My plan is to password protect things like Netflix, probably add additional site filters to my pihole, have a desktop in a central location for kid use with restricted privileges, no smart phone, etc.