AdGuardHome Adguard Home Parental Controls

[vlord]

I've had issues with Diversion and in the process of remediation, I've temporarily switched over to AGH to compare and contrast. OOB AGH seems to do 95% of what oisd's large list does. One thing that I'm uncertain about are a couple settings related to the security web service and parental controls:

Questions:
1. Where is this said "security web service" and how do I access it?
2. Turning on parental controls shows adult sites getting blocked but how do you see the comprehensive list or edit it? -- quite possibly related to q1
3. Is there an adult website block list that I can add to AGH instead of using parental controls?
4. How have others setup parental controls using AGH or using some other combination? I know I could use something like cloudfare's 1.1.1.3 but was looking for something a little more granular than the sledgehammer approach.

 

[Gary_Dexter]

I've had issues with Diversion and in the process of remediation, I've temporarily switched over to AGH to compare and contrast. OOB AGH seems to do 95% of what oisd's large list does. One thing that I'm uncertain about are a couple settings related to the security web service and parental controls:

View attachment 50130

Questions:
1. Where is this said "security web service" and how do I access it?
2. Turning on parental controls shows adult sites getting blocked but how do you see the comprehensive list or edit it? -- quite possibly related to q1
3. Is there an adult website block list that I can add to AGH instead of using parental controls?
4. How have others setup parental controls using AGH or using some other combination? I know I could use something like cloudfare's 1.1.1.3 but was looking for something a little more granular than the sledgehammer approach.

To answer your questions:

1. It’s there. You just set it and forget it. No additional settings to change

2. As above. You can’t edit the list of sites

3. Yes. OISD has one and there are a few others out there as well

4. I just turn it on and leave it set. I use Unbound for my DNS so that doesn’t offer any filtering.

 

[vlord]

To answer your questions:

1. It’s there. You just set it and forget it. No additional settings to change

2. As above. You can’t edit the list of sites

3. Yes. OISD has one and there are a few others out there as well

4. I just turn it on and leave it set. I use Unbound for my DNS so that doesn’t offer any filtering.

Thanks!

For the malware and adult blocking service, the description says that it's sending a short hashed string to the service. Any privacy concerns there? This is why I was thinking about block lists like what you mentioned with https://nsfw.oisd.nl but it seems like AGH client settings don't allow for choosing specific block lists unless I'm missing something.

BTW - Do you use the beta or release channel for AGH?

 

[Gary_Dexter]

Thanks!

For the malware and adult blocking service, the description says that it's sending a short hashed string to the service. Any privacy concerns there? This is why I was thinking about block lists like what you mentioned with https://nsfw.oisd.nl but it seems like AGH client settings don't allow for choosing specific block lists unless I'm missing something.

BTW - Do you use the beta or release channel for AGH?

You can whitelist domains in blocklists against devices using custom filtering. To my knowledge you can’t exclude devices from blocklists as a whole.

I run the release version on a rpi

 

[vlord]

Just as a follow up to this, here’s what I’ve done from a parental control perspective.

On the router DHCP server settings, I’ve pinned the adults’s mac addresses to specific IP addresses. On IOS devices you’ll need to disable “private wifi address” for this to work.

In AGH, once the devices are set to a specific IP address, you can create a custom client settings for those IP addresses which will override the global settings. For us, I have the global settings using the security, parental, and safe search settings. I am using just the two out of the box filter lists as I’ve found it highly effective and low on resources in combination with suppressing some chatty clients (roku / amazon). For the custom client settings, I disabled the safe search as it was a bit intrusive in blocking legitimate searches but left the other settings in tact.

I wish there was a local cache / list option for the malware and adult sites where it would allow you to choose specific lists/sources and still categorize accordingly. I’m not terribly keen on sending even hashed string to some random server

That said, overall, I’m please with the results. I’ve been using Diversion for years and had I found an easy equivalent mechanism to do the same as above, I probably would have stuck with it. I think a good bit of the challenge is just finding well managed host lists that don’t break other things in the process. oisd.nl was pretty darn close with their large and nsfw lists but with my chatty roku and amazon devices, I wound up on this path and, frankly, it’s better for what I’m looking to do.

A few things I wish AGH would have:
1) A page on the router web that had some basic information about AGH, like status, version, and a link to the web page. I know I could bookmark the AGH page but I’m really old school and, frankly, I’ve never really taken to bookmarks and they are a pain on IOS devices
2) Modals for each of the panels on the dashboard page do you can see more content at onces
3) Alert thresholds - e.g. if an adult or malware site is attempted to be visited (x visits over y time), I’d prefer to get an alert rather than having to log into the site to see what’s going on (proactive vs reactive)

 

[Gary_Dexter]

Just as a follow up to this, here’s what I’ve done from a parental control perspective.

On the router DHCP server settings, I’ve pinned the adults’s mac addresses to specific IP addresses. On IOS devices you’ll need to disable “private wifi address” for this to work.

In AGH, once the devices are set to a specific IP address, you can create a custom client settings for those IP addresses which will override the global settings. For us, I have the global settings using the security, parental, and safe search settings. I am using just the two out of the box filter lists as I’ve found it highly effective and low on resources in combination with suppressing some chatty clients (roku / amazon). For the custom client settings, I disabled the safe search as it was a bit intrusive in blocking legitimate searches but left the other settings in tact.

I wish there was a local cache / list option for the malware and adult sites where it would allow you to choose specific lists/sources and still categorize accordingly. I’m not terribly keen on sending even hashed string to some random server

That said, overall, I’m please with the results. I’ve been using Diversion for years and had I found an easy equivalent mechanism to do the same as above, I probably would have stuck with it. I think a good bit of the challenge is just finding well managed host lists that don’t break other things in the process. oisd.nl was pretty darn close with their large and nsfw lists but with my chatty roku and amazon devices, I wound up on this path and, frankly, it’s better for what I’m looking to do.

A few things I wish AGH would have:
1) A page on the router web that had some basic information about AGH, like status, version, and a link to the web page. I know I could bookmark the AGH page but I’m really old school and, frankly, I’ve never really taken to bookmarks and they are a pain on IOS devices
2) Modals for each of the panels on the dashboard page do you can see more content at onces
3) Alert thresholds - e.g. if an adult or malware site is attempted to be visited (x visits over y time), I’d prefer to get an alert rather than having to log into the site to see what’s going on (proactive vs reactive)

If you’re running iOS devices then install the “AdGuard Home Remote” app. It’s unofficial but works well and you can add a widget to your iOS devices home screens to view stats etc.

 

[vlord]

If you’re running iOS devices then install the “AdGuard Home Remote” app. It’s unofficial but works well and you can add a widget to your iOS devices home screens to view stats etc.

Great app! Thanks for sharing. Already went pro with it.