All I need is to have internet access protected with a family dns so my children can access the internet securely with their devices.
I tried everything I thought of for days, every available option on and off from the web interface and the android app, I updated the router, rebooted, made a reset, whatever I try connects to the internet but isn’t filtered by any DNS, manual, encrypted or whatever
Can someone help in any way ?
How do you plan to filter the DNS?
With the options of the DNS server settings in the android app for exemple.
There are different modes:
Encrypted DNS/dnscrypt proxy/adguard DNS family.
Encrypted DNS/ DNS over TLS/ nextdns/nextdns ID.
Manual DNS/ any DNS you choose or one within the list.
There are also options like DNS rebinding attack protection and override DNS client settings.
But you understand that all of these actions will only create a more or less secure way to use DNS, it’s not a filter like you can choose what to filter in that case. Only AdGuard DNS family (speaking of your list) will block sites not suitable for children.
So if you plan to use AdGuard DNS family, you should active it and you need to set Override DNS Settings for All Clients to enabled.
Please keep in mind that no all devices will honor this setting. For example iOS devices could use Apple Private Relay which will bypass DNS. DNS filtering is easy to bypass in general.
Exactly, that is my problem, for exemple AdGuard DNS family or any other DNS doesn’t block sites not suitable for children and I don’t understand why even with Override DNS Settings for All Clients enabled.
Are you sure that your end device uses the DNS of the router?
Modern systems are designed to fail over to more privacy-respecting technologies. So it could happen that Google Chrome, for example, don’t care about the DNS settings of your router.
As written before: DNS blocking is mostly useless anyway if you don’t fully control all attached devices.
Ok then,I understand clearly that it is useless to try to use a DNS from a router, thanks. Should I try to setup a VPN instead or will it also be easily bypassed ?
It’s not per se useless, but it’s not a big deal to bypass. It will work if all devices use the routers DNS. But here the trouble starts because, as I said before, some programs will simply use their own DNS service.
→ DNS-over-HTTPS (DoH) FAQs | Firefox Help
→ About iCloud Private Relay - Apple Support
VPN won’t help you because the same issues will affect VPN as well. (As long as they don’t offer some “filtering”)
The only true solution for blocking specific sites is by using a firewall (on the device itself or as some next-gen hardware) which will intercept connections. This is behind of scope of the GL router.
So once more: Please ensure that all devices use your router as the main DNS server. If this isn’t possible (because f.e. the children are admins on their devices) it’s not really useful to use DNS blocking.
I am using AdGuard Home combined with AdGuard DNS and never experienced any problems while blocking specific sites. Maybe this is something you could try as well.
Ok thank you very much for your help, I will look into adguard home. Problem solved.