Asus xt9 google safesearch

[Gm2000]

Hi

I have 2 x XT9’s and I want to enforce google safe search on 2 kids Amazon fire tablets.

I am using opendns for web filtering which works fine. I’ve forced thr tablets IP/Mac address to use opendns’s DNS. However google searches are not restarted to safe search.

I’ve read about adding CNAME to redirect to forcesafesearch.google.com but on stock asus firmware is there a way of doing this? Thanks

 

[bbunge]

Good luck with that! Kids can quickly defeat most of the blocks you impose..

A good place to start is to disable MAC randomization on all your portable devices. Yes, yous and the kids. Enable MAC filtering whitelist in the router for all your WIFI clients on 2.4 and 5 GHz bands. This will hopefully foil attempts to connect to your WIFI by using a different MAC address. It will be a pain when you want to add clients.
Not sure about Google Safe Search (and I would not use it anyway) but your router has Parental Controls, Web Apps and Filters which should do the same thing. There are other DNS servers that can be assigned with Manually Assigned IP addresses. And you can use the Asus router app to assign safe browsing to clients.
Locking in the MAC address is not a permanent fix. The kids can add a VPN to bypass whatever block. Just be a parent and work with the kids to teach them what is safe and proper online.

 

[Gm2000]

Thanks. Those are useful tips, certainly for when the my are older. They are currently 4 and 7 so initially I just need a basic block on google images etc. I’m slightly reluctant to enable filtering on the ASU’s router in case there is a performance hit, I’ll investigate further thanks

 

[bbunge]

You will not get a performance hit using Parental controls. Using the Google Safe Search only limits what they can see on Google. What if they use another search engine that is not filtered? Using a filtered DNS is a better method. Then if they find an adult site on search they will not be able to get to it.
Give the Parental Controls and Safe Search/Family on the Asus app a try. Easy enough to go back...

 

[Gm2000]

Thanks. I’m using opendns to block content which is working fine. Kids are young so would only likely use google as it’s the default on the fire tablet, but I take your point about using bing etc