Router with Parental Control

[SheriffFatman]

Hi all,
hope someone out there can point me in the right direction.
Like most household nowadays we have a wireless router (Linksys) and it works fine for the 3 laptops, 2 iPods, a blackberry and an Xbox. I have set up some filtering for my 14-year-old twin's laptops and iPods (MAC address permitted at certain times of the day, and blocking certain keywords).
We have in the past put parental filtering on each laptop but it was either breakable (k9 parental control) or too restrictive (Microsoft parental control - made it very hard to install applications even when logged on as an administrator). So I was looking for a router based solution. I don't mind paying a subscription if it will work.
Ideally I would like to be able to pick each MAC address (a previous router actually gave me the device name which made it even easier) and tell the router: This device is permitted to connect to the internet between 7am and 9pm (for example), has a filter in place set at an appropriate level (e.g. no adult sites etc) but can access the rest of the network (shared drives, printer) outside those times.
I know that no filtering software is perfect but if it helps at all I would be happier.
I am not a network expert but have worked in IT for many years, surely this should not be too difficult?

Any suggestions gratefully received

Regards

[Acathla]

It's blue!

Are you looking for a N or a G?

Netgear offer some Parental Control product currently on their WNR2000 (is that not the one VM used to use?) - have a look here: http://www.netgear.com/lpc

I'll leave others to make more 'personal experience' suggestions.

[SheriffFatman]

Thanks Acathla,
that looks perfect but bizarrely the Netgear UK site, while showing the same router, makes no mention of the opendns Parental control feature, it can't be US specific can it?
(This is where my technical knowledge runs out)
Do you need a specific router to use it? Or is it just the that particular router bundles control of the service into its own control panel?
regards

---------- Post added at 13:42 ---------- Previous post was at 13:42 ----------

BTW all my devices are G so do not need N but I assume an N router will handle G too.

[xpod]

You dont need to buy a new router to use OpenDNS and it`s filtering options but you might not get the "certain times of day" control your also after.
There`s simple cheaper solutions to that one too though.

[rogerdraig]

as said opendns the times of day should be settable on any router via mac addresses

but in real terms the only certain parental control is
1 sitting with them
2 removing the router when you don't want it being used
3 teaching them what you expect and trusting them when old enough

personally i wouldn't allow use out of sight until you think you can trust them

at 14 i think you are at the point that either they will stick to the rules with out the extra security or they will by pass it anyway which is simple to do and easy to learn if they are set on doing so

[ic2]

Originally Posted by SheriffFatman

Any suggestions gratefully received

Regards

We have a Draytek 2930 installed http://www.draytek.co.uk/products/vigor2930.html

It comes with eithert Draytek web content filtering or Surf Control http://www.draytek.co.uk/products/draytek_wcf.html mine has the later but i think its moving to the Draytek version this year. At the moment, the Surf control version is free.

The router is not cheap but it suits our needs.

[SheriffFatman]

OK - I'm leaning towards the Netgear router + opendns solution as long as the UK version of the router is compatible (bought my current router from argos less than 30 days ago so can go and swap it over )
My boys know what we expect of them but at the end of the day I have 14yo twins who each have laptops in their bedrooms (lack of facebook would be social suicide apparently) so watching their every web-page personally is not really practical. I also am aware that no technical solution will be perfect but I would be remiss if I didn't try.
I'll trawl the web to see if I can find anyone who's got the netgear opendns solution working in the UK.
I can still filter access outside 7am-9pm using the basic mac filtering on the router (although my current one has to be blocked from 9pm-11:55 and then from midnight-7am!)
Thanks to everyone who has contributed so far, any further thoughts always appreciated.

[ic2]

Originally Posted by SheriffFatman

OK - I'm leaning towards the Netgear router + opendns solution

The only problem I found with opendns was that when VM refreshed my IP I lost internet connectivity as it could not get to the DNS servers. I even used their tool to try and mitigate this but it never worked with me.

[SheriffFatman]

Hi all, going to go get the WNR2000 from Argos at the weekend, have not been able to find anywhere on the web that says it will work with the UK router but I'm willing to chance it .

[Acathla]

http://www.testfreaks.co.uk/routers-...tgear-wnr2000/
http://www.broadbandbuyer.co.uk/Shop...ProductID=7259

Two UK websites that mention it's 'Comprehensive Parental Controls'. No direct mention of openDNS but I presume you have some time to exchange in Argos if it doesn't work how you want.

---------- Post added at 23:56 ---------- Previous post was at 23:08 ----------

Well just for you, I went up to the loft and got my VM supplied WNR2000 which is a V1 model. Upgraded firmware to V1.2.3.7 and installed the Live Parental Controls management Utility from Netgear.

I can safely say that it does work.

I just hope it does what you need of it

[SheriffFatman]

Thanks Acathla, that is truely above and beyond what I expected.

thanks again

[SheriffFatman]

Hi guys,
got the new router, working fine, blocking all unwanted sites as expected. Thanks for pointing me in the right direction.


Only fly in the ointment at the moment is that the bypass account i set up does not seem to work (created an account with no blocking at all to test it) and am still blocked. Downloaded the Live Parental Controls user utility, logged in, it says I'm logged in but still blocked as per the default account. Ironically it's exactly the situation described in the netgear video that I am trying to achieve (allowing facebook for some accounts some of the time and for wifey's account all of the time)
Any suggestions, once again, gratefully recieved. Going to post a similar message over on the netgear forums see if anyone there has had similar issues.

Sheriff

[Acathla]

Sheriff,

I've just seen your post. Any joy with the bypass account yet?
I can hook up my router again and try to bypass and see if I can work something out.

Let me know,

Steven

[SheriffFatman]

Thanks Acathla, I managed to sort it out.
The issue was (and I guess still is) that I paid for a premium opendns account ($9,95) which allowed me to remove adverts from the block page and add my own text etc. The issue occurs if I get opendns to manage my network via the opendns website those settings override whatever settings I configure via the netgear.opendns site. If I stop opendns managing my network directly and just use the netgear interface it seems ok.
There does not seem to be any plan to allow netgear users to access premium account settings from opendns, mildly annoying but not the end of the world.

Thansk again for your help

My final hurdle seems to be that when logging onto a bypass account the utility sometimes asks for the username and password for the router which am sure is a configuration issue somewhere (if users can log on to the router they would be able to alter the dns servers and therefore disable opendns which seems nonsensical)