[support]

@casino Black/white lists control whether the sites are blocked. When a site is blocked, it’s never available.

Calendars control when a site is available (for sites that are not blocked). When you put google.com on a calendar with no time allocation, it is equivalent to putting google.com on a black list. However, there are some differences:

1. If google.com is in the black list, you can bypass the blocking for subdomains such as news.google.com, mail.google.com by putting them in the white list.
2. If google.com is blocked by a calendar, you need to create a new calendar with open time slots for the subdomains such as news.google.com, mail.google.com.

The page slowdown is a bug. Thanks for bringing it up. It will be fixed in the next update.

[support]

@casino You need to check the logs in Raw view to see the blocked domain names and the block reasons.

Black/white lists and calendar entries are separate from each other. White listing a domain does not make it available for all times. You need to create another calendar with broader time slots for the more specific domains. I.e., you need to create a new calendar for mobile-webview.gmail.com, inbox.google.com, etc., and assign to it the time slots you want those domains available.

[support]

@moral The other way around. Those in Access Control override the Internet Settings page. When Access Control is enabled, the DNS in Internet Settings is used only when you choose “System Default” on a profile.

[support]

Comparing these three ways of ad blocking:

1. hosts file on each computer
2. DNS service such as AdGuard
3. pcWRT router built-in ad blocking

In general, if you do 2 or 3, then you don’t need 1.

With option 2, you just set the DNS server IPs to that of AdGuard. But you don’t have much control over what’s blocked.

With option 3, you need to check the “Ad Block” checkbox on the profile, and the router will apply a default block list (https://github.com/pcwrt-router/Adblock). You can add domains to the white list to bypass the default block list, and you can add domains to the black list to block additional domains (append !A to the domain name to indicate an Ad block instead of a normal block). For example, to block ads.example.com as an Ad domain, you’d enter ads.example.com!A.

With option 3, the router will report the number of ads blocked for the day for the device you are using. And you have the option to pause Ad blocking for the device you are using, with the ad block control page (in case some web site doesn’t work with ads blocked).

[support]

What is the IP address displayed under the Internet section in the Status page (on the pcWRT router)?

[support]

@casino This would be a security issue. We can’t let an unauthenticated user rebooting the router.

[support]

@kmortelite You need to connect the pcWRT WAN port to a LAN port on your main router.

[support]

@ANGEL Open your browser, log on the router management page. Click on the Apps link on the top and you’ll see the Access Control icon on the page.

[support]

@goldie Go to the Access Control page, there’s a “View Logs” link to the right of the page title.

[support]

@casino Good idea. Will add this in the next update.

[support]

@casino He’s saying that CleanBrowsing blocks search engines that do not support safe search. So if you switch the DNS to CleanBrowsing, then the unsafe search engines will be blocked.

[support]

@goldie Then maybe the problem is not that the router was blocking Google Meet. You can check the Internet logs page to see if anything is blocked while you are using Google Meet.

[support]

@goldie On the Access Control page, expand the profile you want to update, uncheck the boxes for “Block Literal IP address” and “Block Proxy/VPM”, then click Save.

[support]

@timiceca991 are you seeing WiFi after you reset? If not, can you try a wired connection?

[support]

The YouTube video, if restricted, is still blocked even when it shows up in ask.com search results (when YouTube is in restricted mode). You should block search engines that don’t support safe search. On the pcWRT router, you should block all search engines except:

1. google.com
2. bing.com
3. duckduckgo.com
4. yandex.com

When you download a YouTube video through a third party web site, the request goes to the third party web site, not YouTube. So you should block such sites. Of course it’s impossible to block all such web sites. But if search engines are blocked and you can’t get a direct link, it is harder to download “bad” videos from the download sites.

[Author]

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