One of the most infuriating things about being a teenager or a kid is all those rules. They’re simply everywhere, and this makes the fact that “rules are made to be broken” all the more painful. The internet is just one of the many places that is filled with such rules, and parental control settings are the tip of the iceberg.
These settings can be applied in a handful of ways but they all have the same purpose of limiting children’s activities online, which if we think about it is not very different to what schools, employers and even certain countries do when censoring parts of the internet. But fortunately, working around this situation at home is much easier than might be expected: all it takes is a VPN.
As mentioned, parental controls can be applied on varying levels and scales, the largest impacting the network itself. This can be done in two ways, either at the level of routers or of ISPs. Some router manufacturers already provide apps for parents’ mobile devices with which they can easily set how much time children can spend on a particular website, or just add it to a blacklist and block it for good. Those who don’t offer such a service also permit access to similar functions from within the router configuration page. The same principle applies for ISPs: through your online account portal, it’s possible to completely block whichever websites are deemed necessary.
It’s also possible to track and limit the kids’ behavior online at a more local level, through the computer. This is more useful if they own a laptop as they can easily take it to their friends’ house, connect to public networks outside the home or steal the neighbor’s Wi-Fi to enjoy unrestricted internet.
Both Windows and Mac computers have a feature designed for parental control that not only blocks inappropriate websites automatically – those with adult content, gambling and such – but can provide activity reports as well. This is useful if they find a new distraction that they end up spending too much time on since these can then be added later to a custom blacklist, too.
Honestly, it’s not hard to circumvent such restrictions, regardless of where or how they are applied. In fact, a simple proxy website is enough most of the times but, as we all know, these don’t apply any encryption and therefore a VPN is always preferable. Usually, the main targets for parents are social media and gaming websites, but search engines like Google are often left open so it can be used to find and download a decent VPN in cases where you don’t know the domain name of a decent provider.
After installing a VPN, your ISP won’t be able to see past the encrypted connection so there are no websites that can be blocked. And because you’ll receive a new random IP address and route your connection through a different server, any restrictions made on Wi-Fi routers at home cannot be applied to the connection. In addition, many VPNs feature browser extensions and ad blockers that can prevent any malware from being installed after a mis-click.
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