Keeping Kids Safe Online: How to Block Inappropriate Websites at Home

Every parent reaches the same moment: the kids are online more than ever, and you want some say over what they can stumble onto. The good news is you have real control here, and most of it is free or already built into the gear you own. The catch is that no single switch covers everything, so it helps to understand the options before you start flicking settings.

This came up with a customer recently, so it's worth laying out properly. There are a few places you can block sites, the router, the device, the apps themselves, and the network's DNS, plus paid software that ties it all together, and each suits a different job. Here's how they work, where they fall short, and how to pick.

The law now does some of this for you

It's worth knowing the ground has shifted. As of 2026 Australia has some of the strictest online-age rules in the world, and a few of them work in your favour automatically:

• Since December 2025, under-16s aren't allowed to hold accounts on the big social media platforms, TikTok, Instagram, Snapchat, YouTube, X and the rest, and the platforms themselves are now responsible for checking.
• From March 2026, adult sites accessed from Australia have to run an age check on visitors, along with many 18+ apps and even AI chatbots.
• Google and Bing are rolling out age checks on logged-in Australian accounts through 2026, which filters explicit results for younger users.

That's a real baseline, and it didn't exist a couple of years ago. But it has gaps you can drive a truck through. The checks mostly apply to logged-in accounts, plenty of smaller and overseas sites ignore them, and a VPN sidesteps the lot in seconds. So treat the new laws as a helpful floor, not a finished job. Your own controls are what cover the gaps, and that's the rest of this guide.

Option 1: Block it at the router

Your router is the front door for every device in the house, so a filter set here covers the lot at once: phones, tablets, laptops, the smart TV, the games console. That whole-home reach is its big advantage.

Most modern routers have some form of parental controls built in. You get to them by opening the router's admin page in a browser (often something like 192.168.0.1 or 192.168.1.1, printed on a sticker on the router itself) and logging in. From there you can usually block specific websites by address, switch on a category filter that blocks whole groups like adult content, and set times when the internet pauses for certain devices, handy for school nights.

The trade-off is that router controls vary a lot between brands, and the cheaper ones are basic. They also only protect devices while they're on your home Wi-Fi. The moment a phone hops onto mobile data or a friend's network, the home filter does nothing. So the router is a strong base layer, not the whole answer.

Option 2: Block it on the device

Controls set on the device itself travel with it, which fixes the mobile-data gap. These are the parental controls baked into the platforms your kids already use:

• Apple Screen Time (iPhones, iPads, Macs) lets you block adult content, limit which apps run, and set daily time limits, all managed from your own phone through Family Sharing.
• Google Family Link does the same across Android phones and tablets, including approving app downloads and seeing screen-time reports.
• Microsoft Family Safety covers Windows PCs and Xbox, with web filtering and activity reports.

These are free, fairly robust, and the right tool for a child's own phone or tablet. The downside is they're set up per device and per account, so a house full of mixed gadgets means repeating the process a few times and keeping the logins straight.

Don't forget the apps themselves

Beyond the device and the network, the apps kids actually live in have their own safety settings, and they are worth switching on. Roblox, hugely popular with younger children, has account restrictions and a parent dashboard where you can lock settings with a PIN, limit who can chat or message your child, and restrict experiences by maturity level. Discord, which skews a bit older, has built-in family safety tools and sensitive-content filters that let you link to your teen's account, see who they are adding, and tighten message screening.

The same goes for YouTube, TikTok, Snapchat, and most games: dig into the privacy and safety menu and you will usually find controls for messaging, contact from strangers, and content maturity. These per-app settings catch things a website filter never sees, like private chat inside a game, so they are worth ten minutes each on the platforms your kids use most.

Option 3: Filter at the DNS level (the quiet achiever)

This is the one most people have never heard of, and it's often the easiest win. Every time a device looks up a website, it asks a DNS server for directions. Point your network at a DNS service that refuses to look up adult or malicious sites, and those sites simply never load, across every device on the network, with nothing installed.

Free family-filtering DNS services do exactly this. Cloudflare's 1.1.1.3, OpenDNS FamilyShield, and CleanBrowsing all block adult content and known dangerous sites at the lookup stage. You enter their addresses once in your router's settings and the whole house is covered in minutes. It's a great companion to the built-in router controls, especially on routers whose own filtering is weak.

The limitation is that DNS filtering is broad rather than precise. It's excellent at blocking whole categories, but it won't manage screen time or handle a specific app, and a tech-savvy teenager can sometimes get around it by changing the DNS on their own device.

Option 4: Dedicated parental-control software

If you would rather manage everything in one place, this is where paid parental-control software earns its keep. You install the same app on each phone, tablet, and computer in the house, then control the lot from a single parent dashboard instead of juggling separate settings on every device.

These suites go further than blocking. On top of content filtering they add monitoring: activity and search reports, daily time limits and schedules, per-app controls, location for phones, and alerts that flag concerning messages or searches. Well-known options include Qustodio, Net Nanny, Norton Family, Bark, and Aura, and most run a monthly or yearly subscription covering a set number of devices.

The appeal is one dashboard and a level of visibility the free tools do not give you, which suits a busy household with a mix of gadgets and younger kids. The trade-offs are the ongoing cost and the monitoring question itself: heavy surveillance can wear down an older child's trust, so be open about what you have set up and ease off as they grow. Used sensibly, it is the closest thing to a single control panel for the whole family.

The honest limits

It's worth being upfront: no filter is perfect, and you shouldn't treat one as a babysitter. A determined older child can find workarounds, a VPN can tunnel straight past a home filter, and mobile data sidesteps anything set only on your Wi-Fi. The strongest setup is layered, a category filter at the router or DNS for the whole home, plus device-level controls on each child's own phone and tablet for when they're out and about.

And the most effective control isn't technical at all. Filters buy you a safer default and some peace of mind, but an ongoing, age-appropriate conversation about what they're seeing online does more than any setting. Tools handle the easy 90 percent so you can focus your attention on the rest.

Where to start

If you do nothing else, two quick wins cover most families: switch your router's DNS to a free family-filtering service, and turn on Screen Time or Family Link on your kids' devices. That combination blocks the bulk of inappropriate content at home and keeps working when they leave the house. If you want monitoring and one dashboard across every device, that is where a paid suite like the ones above earns its place.

If you'd rather not wade through router menus, or you've got a mix of devices and want it done once and done right, that's exactly the kind of job we sort for Perth families. We'll set up filtering across the whole home, lock the settings so they can't be casually undone, and show you how to adjust things as the kids grow. Get in touch or give us a call and we'll take it from there.