Parental Controls Confusing

Parental Controls Confusing

Parental Controls Confusing
Parental Controls Confusing
3 weeks ago - last edited Saturday
Model: Archer VR1600v  
Hardware Version:
Firmware Version:

Archer router Parental Controls blacklist no longer working. Whitelist works. Tested by blocking my personal site's domain. It did not block. I whitelisted it, and that worked.
Resetting the wireless router might fix it. But then I have to set up the guest access, the two wireless bands, the name, the password and I have to look up the initial password it gets and connect via RJ45 to get access....
The issue is not that the user interface is confusing, though it is. The issue is that sometimes it works, and some times it doesn't, and you have to power cycle or reset to find out if it is working.
When I was a systems administrator, I used to set all this up using a text file. If the text file had issues, you got an error message saying so. The paradigm was, give  me the commands, and I will do it, but you got to know the command. Graphical User Interface (GUI) paradigm is "Here is everything. Find what you need. " When Steve Jobs was in charge of Apple, he got GUI to be elegant and simple. Apple spent huge amounts of money making GUI easy to use, while everyone else copied Apple badly. TP-LINK is no exception, their GUI sucks.

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#1
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3 Reply
Re:Parental Controls Confusing
3 weeks ago - last edited Saturday

  @jtho2607 

Hi,

 

Did you get this VR1600v from your ISP? 

Based on our experience, you can try the following troubleshooting steps:

1. Ensure the client device does not use Random/Private MAC address.

2. Please disable VPN software on the clients.

 

If it is still not working normally, please contact the local support for further support.

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#2
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Re:Parental Controls Confusing
3 weeks ago

  @jtho2607

* Yes, I got the router from my Internet Service Provider

* Devices does not use random private MAC address. The MAC address in the TP Link web interface matches the one reported by the systems settings on the tablet

* No VPN software is used.

 

The issue is that the software running on the router is not reliable, and does not supply appropriate error messages, and has an interface that was not carefully planned or executed.
The bar is very low for web interfaces for these devices, so it would be a refreshing change if TP-Link paid an undergraduate a couple of hundred bucks to write something that is easy to use, and get this person to work with the low level guys to interpret the error codes and report them on the interface in some intelligible way. That is assuming you actually have any technical people working for TP Link in any permanent capacity that are not overworked with the parent company cutting costs.

 

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#3
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Re:Parental Controls Confusing
3 weeks ago

  @Sunshine I feel I was a little unfair, at least I think I was. Anyhow, it is working now, though I am not entirely sure why. I was trying to block youtube, but youtube is complex and the application uses many DNS names. The web browser though should have been definitive with the entered URL not loading anything if the domain is blocked, so I entered the domain of my personal site, and the browser was not being blocked from accessing it.

 

I guess the solution is set up the parenting restrictions for DNS, wait 24 hours and it may work. Below is a list of DNS names that need to be blocked to block youtube. The fact that there are so many DNS names shows how persistent youtube is to controlling the way you think.

www.youtube.com
m.youtube.com
www.tiktok.com
ytimg.com
ytimg.l.google.com
i.google.com
youtu.be
youtube.com.au
www.youtubekids.com
www.instagram.com
youtube.com
s.ytimg.com
youtube.l.google.com
googlevideo.com
yt.be
kids.youtube.com

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#4
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