Asus, when are you fixing parental control !!!

[red fuji]

we are at FW 3.0.0.4.374-257 now. Released Aug 14, 2013

I am really frustrated and fed up with Asus- i paid good money for this supposedly highly praised router. I keep updating firmwares one after another hoping the next one will fix the issue . Nope. I been holding on too long and its time to squeak. i just updated firmware again and problem still exists. Is Asus serious about this ? they take forever to fix things or maybe they lack the tech ability? I dont know-but i dont think Parental Control needs a rocket scientist to debug it. Parental control does not want to follow any time slots !
my system clock is correctly synced-not the problem. Asus really needs to get on the ball with this one. It is pissing people off.

 

[RogerSC]

This is not an Asus-sponsored support forum, this is a user community with users helping users. If you actually have a problem that you want Asus to fix, I'd suggest sending a detailed report to cl-jeremy@asus.com, he's in support at Asus and can get bugs reported to development there. Be sure to include your saved settings file, and system log if appropriate.

 

[red fuji]

Thanks for the email -will certainly try that as well. my ranting-sorry. i know it is not the most appropriate method. but i am at the ends of my ropes with Asus; parental control issue is not new to their developers-low priority on their task list. it is why i been searching for a creative solution from expert users on this forum. Thanks.

 

[Deleted member 22229]

FWIW I have found bugs in parent controls in almost every router I have ever owned it's not just Asus.

 

[CaptainSTX]

FWIW I have found bugs in parent controls in almost every router I have ever owned it's not just Asus.

The problem is that once someone can connect to your LAN the ability of the router and system administrator to control/ prevent which sites they someone connect to are limited. If a PC user has administrative privileges on their machine then they can easily change their IP, MAC address and perhaps over ride pre-selected DNS servers.

That is why in many companies the IT department does not allow other employees to have administrative privileges on their company supplied computers.

 

[RMerlin]

I hope I won't offend anyone with this, but I have to get something off my chest:

What happened with parents actively controlling their children rather than having to let their router/computer/tech_piece automatically control them? When I was a kid, my parents kept an eye on me. If they saw me watching too much TV, they would tell me to do something else or to go to bed - they didn't need a timer plugged to my TV to automatically limit the time I spent in front of it.

Parents of the 21st century seem to think that technology can raise their children for them. In doing so, they are losing the human contact, which allows a parent and his children to actually develop a bond together.

Again, sorry for the off-topic. That doesn't excuse the presence of software issues in parental control, but I think people are trying to rely far too much on technology to do part of their parenting job. Talk to your kid. Show some interest in what he is doing. Tell him what you expect him to do in terms of time spent on the computer, or on the Internet.

As pointed out, software solutions can easily be worked around anyway.

 

[Deleted member 22229]

100% Agree !!! Although when a router of any make says it has parent controls it should function as stated by the company. Linksys parent controls don't even work at all even though they claim its a great feature.

 

[DrTeeth]

+1 RMerlin

Having said that, if a feature is supplied it should be fixed - makes a company look like a tool having something continually broken.

 

[RMerlin]

On the Parental Control case, Asus isn't ignoring it. They recently fixed issues with Parental Control and Internet Explorer, and my contact told me he was aware of more issues related to other browsers that they were looking into. I see Parental Control-related code change in almost every new firmware release from Asus - that's the main reason why I don't want to touch that code myself right now, as it would be counter-productive.

I see a lot of users reporting issues with it, but also a lot of users actually using it without any problem. This means there must be a specific scenario that prevents it from working for those users. Isolating what's different between those for who it works and those for who it doesn't work is the tricky part. Unless Asus can figure out the specific scenario where it doesn't work, they can't do much about it. A programmer cannot fix a bug that he cannot reproduce himself.

If people are willing to help, here's my recommendation: have a single thread where users for who it doesn't work post the details of their specific scenario, and exactly WHAT doesn't work ("it doesn't work" is useless for debugging purposes). Other users who have no problem with it can then chime in, and by comparing what's different between both groups, we might be able to figure out a specific test-case. I have no problem with taking care of bringing that specific test-case back to Asus for validation once it's been isolated. But a specific scenario that can reproduce the issue is needed.

And posting the same complain in 7 different threads on a forum that has zero association with Asus? Not gonna help. The users on this forum will be annoyed long before Asus.

 

[cmillar6]

I hope I won't offend anyone with this, but I have to get something off my chest:

What happened with parents actively controlling their children rather than having to let their router/computer/tech_piece automatically control them? When I was a kid, my parents kept an eye on me. If they saw me watching too much TV, they would tell me to do something else or to go to bed - they didn't need a timer plugged to my TV to automatically limit the time I spent in front of it.

Parents of the 21st century seem to think that technology can raise their children for them. In doing so, they are losing the human contact, which allows a parent and his children to actually develop a bond together.

Again, sorry for the off-topic. That doesn't excuse the presence of software issues in parental control, but I think people are trying to rely far too much on technology to do part of their parenting job. Talk to your kid. Show some interest in what he is doing. Tell him what you expect him to do in terms of time spent on the computer, or on the Internet.

As pointed out, software solutions can easily be worked around anyway.

I agree with this statement however parents 30 years ago did not have the internet to contend with. Parental controls are one of the most important features in a router IMHO. My kids are allowed to use one of our tablets and laptops for certain periods throughout the week and I would like to be able to filter certain websites from being viewed without shutting down that URL for every client on the network. I blocked YouTube with the URL filter in the firewall to stop my 6 year old from watching it and then had my wife complaining to me she couldn't access YouTube on her laptop. This is the one weakness in the parental control feature in the Asus firmware. URL filtering should be IP specific. Kids today are tech savvy, the TV's in my house sit and collect dust, my kids call it old fashioned. They would rather fire up their Kindle and watch whatever their heart desires through NetFlix or Amazon Video.
The internet is a monster for the modern parent to contend with and when you drop $195 on a premium router you expect simple things to work and work well. If I don't want my kids watching a certain channel on TV when they are allowed to watch it I can easily block it, with my AC66u I can't. My oldest child has already figured out that my router has a reset button. Another feature I'd like to see is the ability to password protect or completely disable the reset button.

 

[RMerlin]

For a good parental control solution, I recommend NetNanny to my customers. It's far more efficient and flexible than what could be implemented in a home router.

 

[DaveMishSr]

I hope I won't offend anyone with this, but I have to get something off my chest:

What happened with parents actively controlling their children rather than having to let their router/computer/tech_piece automatically control them? When I was a kid, my parents kept an eye on me. If they saw me watching too much TV, they would tell me to do something else or to go to bed - they didn't need a timer plugged to my TV to automatically limit the time I spent in front of it.

Parents of the 21st century seem to think that technology can raise their children for them. In doing so, they are losing the human contact, which allows a parent and his children to actually develop a bond together.

Again, sorry for the off-topic. That doesn't excuse the presence of software issues in parental control, but I think people are trying to rely far too much on technology to do part of their parenting job. Talk to your kid. Show some interest in what he is doing. Tell him what you expect him to do in terms of time spent on the computer, or on the Internet.

As pointed out, software solutions can easily be worked around anyway.

First, when I was using the parental control to limit my networks Internet connection it worked fine. There was an issue with my RT-N66U where the Saturday limits would fudge up but that was corrected and Parental Control worked flawlessly for me ever since.

Second, I agree with Merlin 100%. My parents did not have to limit anything with me as a child except for how much time I spent playing outside. My friends and I would be in the woods most of the time playing army using sticks for guns and rocks for grenades (those helmets came in handy). We came in when the streetlights came on, for lunch and dinner and were outside after finishing our homework while in school on weekdays. Once we got into high school, homework and extra-curricular activities took up most of our free time.

Also, my kids also figured out that plugging the cable modem directly into the computer rendered Parental Controls moot. Of course they figured that out after we "discussed" the sudden resetting of the router (funny how the Internet setup would always be completed to allow access though). After that they would just plug the LAN cable from the desktop directly into the modem. I finally set up the BIOS to password protect loading of the OS. My wife or I had to be present in order for the desktop to boot into Windows. That took place after dinner only so they would play outside before it got dark and cold in the winter.

 

[CaptainSTX]

URL filtering should be IP specific. Kids today are tech savvy, the TV's in my house sit and collect dust, my kids call it old fashioned. They would rather fire up their Kindle and watch whatever their heart desires through NetFlix or Amazon Video.
T.

On a PC if the user has administrative rights blocking by IP is worthless once an individual has basic computer skills and learns that you can go directly into Windows and assign a PC a static IP which isn't blocked or even easier download an utility which will do the same thing.

Also as mentioned in this thread there are many other simple things that can be done on a PC to circumvent Parental Controls.

 

[cmillar6]

On a PC if the user has administrative rights blocking by IP is worthless once an individual has basic computer skills and learns that you can go directly into Windows and assign a PC a static IP which isn't blocked or even easier download an utility which will do the same thing.

Also as mentioned in this thread there are many other simple things that can be done on a PC to circumvent Parental Controls.

Not if you have the router statically assign an IP address by MAC address, used the IP specific URL filter on my old router all the time, was very effective.

 

[DrTeeth]

I have a very simple solution to my children bypassing any controls I put in place. I threaten to punish them severely...and they know I mean it.
I just use parental controls to close the wi-fi down. I do not restrict access to any sites at all.

 

[Finguz]

For what it's worth I am using parental control to disable our daughters wireless internet access at 10 - 11 pm, depending on the night, and re-enable it the next morning at 8 a.m.

It works perfectly.

 

[RMerlin]

Anyone for whom Parental Control doesn't work: please try going to LAN -> Switch Control, and set "Enable HW accelerator" to "No". Apply, reboot, and let me know if you see any difference. I just noticed that HW acceleration seems to be enabled even when Parental Control is. As far as I can remember, I think the two aren't compatible, so maybe the problem is simply the FW fails to disable HW acceleration.

Let me know the results.

 

[DrTeeth]

I have hardware acceleration enabled and use parental control just to turn off the wi-fi for particular devices. As it's the summer hols, it is off at the moment. <Evil thought> I could turn it on and see if my kids go nuts when it goes off </Evil thought>. Sure-fire way to see if it is working.

>> LAN -> Switch Control, and set "Enable HW accelerator" to "No"<<
In 3.0.0.4.270.26b it is "Disable HW Accelerator" the options being 'yes' or 'no'. Got to love double negatives in user interfaces .

 

[Finguz]

Hardware acceleration is enabled here.

Running 3.0.0.4.372.31 (Merlin build).

 

[RMerlin]

Hardware acceleration is enabled here.

Running 3.0.0.4.372.31 (Merlin build).

Ok, must be something else then preventing it from working for some users. Thanks for checking, was worth a shot.