Parental controls that reach the devices apps cannot
Filtering at the DNS layer applies to a whole device rather than one browser, so it works on a games console, a smart TV and a tablet just as well as on a phone.
Why app-based controls keep failing
Most parental controls live inside one app or one operating system. A child with a console, a tablet, a school laptop and a television is being protected in some of those places and not others, and the gaps are exactly where the arguments happen.
DNS filtering sits underneath all of it. Every device has to ask a resolver where a domain lives before it can reach it, so a rule set once applies to every app on that device — including the ones that have no settings of their own.
What you can actually control
A different policy per device
Each profile has its own resolver address and its own rules. A six-year-old’s tablet, a teenager’s phone and the family television can each have their own policy from one account, and nothing is shared between them unless you want it to be.
136 services you can block by name
TikTok, Roblox, Instagram, Snapchat, Discord, Fortnite, Steam and more, switched on individually. Because the block happens at the DNS layer it reaches consoles, tablets and smart TVs where no parental-control app can be installed.
Rules that follow the clock
Schedules change what a profile blocks by time of day and day of week. Social media can be unavailable during school hours and homework time and come back afterwards, without anyone having to remember to switch it.
Safe search you cannot turn off from the device
Google, Bing, YouTube and DuckDuckGo are forced into their safe-search modes at the DNS layer, so the setting cannot be undone in the browser. Search engines with no safe-search mode are blocked outright rather than left as a gap.
Categories, not just individual sites
Twenty-two categories cover adult content, gambling, piracy, newly registered domains and more, drawn from continuously updated lists. You are not maintaining a blocklist by hand.
Setting it up for a household
Start on the router, which covers everything on the home network at once, then give the devices that leave the house their own profile so the rules travel with them. A phone set up directly keeps its policy on mobile data and on a friend’s Wi-Fi.
The steps for each platform are on the setup page. Nothing needs installing on any of them.
What this does not do
It is worth being straight about the limits, because a parental control you believe in wrongly is worse than none.
- It blocks domains, not content. Something objectionable hosted on a domain you want available — a video on a site you allow — is not something DNS can see.
- A device that changes its DNS setting stops being filtered. On a phone you hand to a child, use the platform’s own restrictions to stop network settings being edited.
- A VPN on the device will usually carry DNS with it and bypass the filter entirely. The Filter Bypass category blocks the well-known VPN and proxy domains, which handles the casual case but not a determined one.
- Mobile data is separate from your home network. A phone set up only at the router is unfiltered the moment it leaves the house, which is why phones want their own profile.
Try it on one device first
The free trial needs an email address and no card. Set it up on a single device, block something you can test immediately, and see how it behaves before rolling it out to the household.