[support]

You may try this:

1. Create a new profile and put the PC in the profile. Save your settings.
2. Pause the profile.
3. Play the game on the PC.

If you are able to play the game, then the game does not need an Internet connection to play.

If you are not able to play the game, open the pcWRT management console and check the Internet logs. See what connections were blocked for the PC. Enter the appropriate domains in the Blocked URLs box.

[support]

When they do that, a named device becomes an anonymous device, and falls under the control of the Default profile. You need to enable control on the Default profile.

But when you look at the logs, you’d see an unrecognized device. To discourage them from changing the MAC addresses of their devices, you can put the most strict control on the Default profile. And put named devices under more reasonable control.

[support]

@casino Since you are the first one reporting this problem, please provide more details so that we can recreate it.

For example, what steps did you take? Did you disable parental control at the router level? What websites were you trying to access and were blocked? What were the settings for the profile to which your device belong? Or does it block devices in all profiles?

[support]

@casino That cannot be done at the router. Because the router only knows about the connections between endpoints (devices), it does not know which program (i.e., Vuze or a browser) initiated the connections. For Vuze or eMule to work, you have to disable blocking on “VPN/proxies, TOR” for the device running Vuze or eMule. Alternatively, if those programs support tunneling through VPN or proxy, configure them to use a VPN/proxy, then white list the VPN/proxy endpoints on the router.

[support]

@casino Thanks for the advice. We understand the need and will keep that in mind.

[support]

@casino The problems you are seeing may be caused by DNS caching in your browser. You can try closing the browser, wait for a few seconds, then restart the browser.

[support]

@casino Checking “Block VPN, Proxy and Tor” will block Vuze. This is not a port forwarding or NAT issue.

Basically, Vuze makes various connections to random hosts at random ports. When you check “Block VPN, Proxy and Tor”, these outbound connections are blocked. You need to move the device that runs Vuze to a profile that does not enable “Block VPN, Proxy and Tor”.

[support]

DNS does not block literal IP addresses because DNS server is not consulted when you already have the IP address. I.e., your computer only contacts the DNS server when it needs to get the IP address for a domain name. If the IP address is already known, the computer does not contact the DNS server.

[support]

I think P2P is blocked with the Proxy/VPN, TOR box, or the combination of that and “Literal IP”. Is it not? If you do need a certain VPN in a profile with such restrictions, you can white list the VPN server domain name or IP address in that profile. Or, if you need VPN on your device, put your device in a profile without such restrictions.

[support]

It’s a challenge to account for active usage at the router. More likely than not, you end up over counting usage and annoy the child, which might lead to disputes.

Our general advice is, instead of monitoring a child’s every move, parents should spend more time communicating and building trust. Technology can only play a secondary role. Our initial motivation for building this product was to make parental control less restrictive, not more. We wanted to build something parents love, but children don’t hate.

[support]

It’s a good thing to have if you can accurately account for the time spent on an app or site. However, this is hard to do on the router. Because the router only sees network traffic, it doesn’t know whether an app was actively used. The Facebook app has a lot of background activities, so tracking usage at the router can easily over count time spent.

An app on the smart phone itself, however, can see when Facebook is actively used.

[support]

“Custom DNS” allows you to override the system level DNS service provided by your ISP with something else, such as Google Public DNS, or Quad 9. If you have parental control disabled at the router level, this is the DNS service the router will use.

If you have parental control enabled, then the DNS service specified in the Profile will take precedence, i.e., the system level DNS will not be used. But there’s one exception: when a site is white listed, the system level DNS is used to resolve the domain name (instead of the profile DNS). Now, if the system level DNS is the same as the domain level, then whitelisting does not work.

[support]

As far as we know, these other sites, i.e., ebay.com, yippy.com etc., do not support safe search with DNS. Kibosh is probably the only site that claims that DNS based safe search is supported. Backpage.com was recently seized by the US DOJ.

[support]

@casino Make sure that you don’t have OpenDNS at the system level: go to the Internet Settings page and check that “Use custom DNS servers” is either unchecked or the DNS server used is a non-filtering DNS.

And, close your browser window, wait for a few seconds, then reopen it.

[support]

@Protection Thank you for bringing this to our attention. We’ve added an entry for safe search setup: How to setup Safe Search.

[Author]

Posts