Trend Micro vs pihole

[stephan1827]

Hi,
one of the nice features on the ASUS routers is Trend Micro. Does anybody have some experience how reliable it is and how it compares to pihole? I am particular interested in parental control. Setting up Trend Micro seems to be very straight forward, but I am wondering how up to date their database is? pihole depends on filter lists and it seems to be much more effort to set up and maintain. How well protect both against bypassing for example with VPN?

Thx

Stephan

 

[bbunge]

Hi,
one of the nice features on the ASUS routers is Trend Micro. Does anybody have some experience how reliable it is and how it compares to pihole? I am particular interested in parental control. Setting up Trend Micro seems to be very straight forward, but I am wondering how up to date their database is? pihole depends on filter lists and it seems to be much more effort to set up and maintain. How well protect both against bypassing for example with VPN?

Thx

Stephan

Comparing Pi-Hole to Asus Parental Control is like comparing apples to oranges. Both do a good job for what they were designed to do. Your best bet is to use a layered approach. A filtered DNS service, parental control with parental oversite of the kids. The kids can and will figure out how to bypass your controls. It is your job to teach them internet safety and let them know what they do online could threaten the security of the family network. Be a good parent!

 

[Clark Griswald]

@bbunge
That was well said, congratulations!
I learned the hard way that my Son was able to bypass my internet access restrictions by 7th grade.
We had a Family talk, regarding Internet Dangers (scams, malware, etc.) and Our Network Safety.
I use both TM and RPi Pi-Hole (ublock browser extension), and we have stayed relatively "safe".
As always, stay current on all updates

 

[BreakingDad]

I use TM, adguard and dns filter. I would know if they tried a vpn. random raids to see what they're up to do the trick.

If all that fails I threaten to send the mother in. Always works.

 

[bbunge]

Years ago I managed the network at our church. They started with a DSL router that had a very basic firewall. I built a router from an old PC and ran IPFire 32 bit. It was a vast improvement as I was able to cache frequent downloads, access the LAN remotely with OpenVPN and use an IP based blacklist to filter browsing. IPFire also allowed me to see who got blocked by the blacklist. As it was a faith based organization I was blocking quite a few "inappropriate" categories.
A couple interesting blocks:
Our pastor was rebuilding an old Mercury Cougar. He searched for Cougar parts and often that name took him to porn sites.
Our female associate pastor liked to shop online at Victoria's Secret. Need I say more?
One Sunday morning a staff members PC was used to try to access a site via a proxy. The staff member was in worship at the time but his daughter faked a headache and asked to use his office. We confronted her and she said the kids at her faith based school did that all the time.
Another time someone using our guest WIFI was blocked from going to a porn site during an evening event. The IPFire log had enough info for me to identify the phone and figure out the guys email address from other traffic. He worked for a faith based senior care facility. I emailed him and gently recommended he check his phone for malware. Right.

Keeping people safe on the internet is a thankless job as we all know. Most just do not understand and you can't fix stupid!