Tag: clean router

How to parent in a digital world– FREE Webinar!!

Posted on by Rachel Chipman

Hi, I’m Caryn, and I handle business development at Clean Router.

 

Hi, I’m Rachel, and I’m social media manager at Clean Router.

 

But we’re also moms, and we want to talk to you moms to mom (or moms to dad) today. I have two teenagers. My kids used to spend way too much time on the internet, and we never really knew what they were doing or seeing online. They would flop on the couch or their beds with their phones after school every day and stay there for hours!

 

 

I have three kids ages four, two, and seven months. When my oldest  child was born, I was amazed how quickly she started reaching for my phone! I thought online safety and screen time limits were for moms with older kids, but my toddlers can’t get enough of smartphones and tablets. My four year old is almost as tech savvy as I am, and my two year old can go from app to app in seconds. Even the crawling baby will “sprint” across the floor to get to a device!

 

 

Last year we attended a seminar at my daughter’s junior high where an assistant chief of police and his partners talked about the dangers of the internet. He explained how popular websites and apps make sex trafficking so much easier for predators. They see cases where predators talk to kids online, gain their trust, and convince kids to meet them. He told us the average age that a child is exposed to pornography is age nine.  NINE!! I was scared to death! My 8th grade daughter had a phone, a laptop, and an iPad. My 6th grade son had an iPad. My kids are smart, and I thought I could trust their good hearts to keep them out of trouble. I realized then that as smart and good as my kids are, I can’t expect them to outsmart adults with years of experience grooming and manipulating children.

 

Clean Router for Every Device in Your Home

 

My toddlers and I like to watch animal videos or clips of Disney movies on YouTube. They love getting to be the one to hold the device and pick the next video. When I read online about disturbing YouTube videos featuring characters from children’s media, I was horrified! As closely as I watch my kids on their devices, I worried that they would be faster than me or that I could be fooled by a misleading thumbnail. I know I can’t shelter my kids forever, but preserving their innocence until kindergarten doesn’t seem too much to ask!

 

 

We may work for a router company, but neither of us is a computer whiz. 

 

You’ve got that right! But it doesn’t take a computer science degree or IT experience to keep your kids safe online. We at Clean Router have put together a webinar with easy internet safety tips any parent can implement!

 

 

Best of all, it’s FREE!

 

The webinar, hosted by Spencer, our CEO, and Ryan, a member of our support team, will take about thirty minutes. They’ll review some statistics about pornography and internet safety and walk you through creating a plan to keep your kids safe online. You will get a chance to ask questions about internet safety, and there will even be a prize at the end!

My family has created an internet safety plan that works for us. It’s simple enough that my toddlers understand the rules, and it’s easy and practical enough for me to keep in place on the craziest days.

 

I put my kids’ devices on a schedule. Now they sleep better at night and we spend more time together as a family during the day!

 

Sign up now for our next free live event!

 

Order your Clean Router today!
Learn tips to keep your kids safe online

Apple Bans Parental Control Apps. Here’s what you need to know!

Posted on by Rachel Chipman

Apple has recently banned some of the most popular parental control apps from the App Store. (Update: Apple retracted the anti-MDM policy on June 4, 2019.) The remaining apps in the store have removed the ability to provide effective parental controls. We created CleanRouter because we believed parents should have control over the amount of screen time and content on their children’s devices. We still do.

 

What can you do to protect your family? Our Child App for Android and iOS are distributed via our internal infrastructure and NOT through Apple’s App Store. Our Child App has the following features:

  • Enable or disable specific apps
  • Enable time restrictions
  • Turn the device’s internet off and on
  • CleanBrowser, which replaces Safari, Chrome, etc., to provide safe browsing on your Clean Router network or a 4G connection

 

How do you get started? Our Child App is included in the mobile subscription, so Clean Router users on this plan can contact support to get started! Email us at support@cleanrouter.com,  call 520-445-4673 during our regular service hours of 7am-7pm MST (Arizona time) weekdays, 10am-4pm Saturday, or use the live chat feature on our website, CleanRouter.com! Families with the basic subscription, now is a great time to upgrade! Contact us today using any of the methods above!

 

If you have been following the controversy surrounding this story, you may have read about a technology called Mobile Device Management, or MDM. After meeting all of Apple’s requirements, including applying for several licenses, we have implemented the use of MDM in our Child App. It’s the only way to give parents the ability to see what apps are on their kids’ devices and allow or block those apps. For reasons Apple has not disclosed, the use of MDM is permitted on Apple devices, but the distribution of apps using MDM through the App store is now prohibited. Other articles have pointed out how this decision coincides with the release of Apple’s new parental controls feature, Screen Time. We will not comment on Apple’s possible motives.

 

Of course, families should guard their online privacy closely and choose their parental controls software with great care. Clean Router only gathers and uses the necessary data for the Child App to function properly. We also do not share or sell data to third parties. We have followed and will continue to follow the policies put in place by both Apple and Google. If you ever have any questions or concerns about your Clean Router, please contact us using any of the methods listed above.

 

Clean Router remains dedicated to providing families with online peace of mind.

 

Order your Clean Router today!
Learn tips to keep your kids safe online

 

Three reasons to turn off your smartphone today

Posted on by Rachel Chipman

Did you know the average person spends almost 3 hours a day on their smartphone? That’s about 20 hours a week– the equivalent of a part time job! Here are three reasons to take a well-deserved vacation from your smartphone.

 

1.Your brain needs quiet

A growing body of research shows that downtime is essential for optimal brain function. Scientists believe a certain kind of brain activity, sharp-wave ripples, help us store and consolidate memories. These ripples can only occur when our brain is resting but awake. Unfortunately, we’re prone to pull out our phones at just that kind of time– when we wake up in the morning, on public transportation, waiting in line, before we go to sleep at night. If you’ve been feeling forgetful lately, keep your phone in your pocket next time you have a quiet moment and just be still.

 

 

2. A better night’s sleep

The blue light emitted by tablets, televisions, computers, and yes, smartphones, hinders our brain’s production of melatonin, the chemical that helps us fall asleep. Even if you fall asleep without difficulty, you may still want to read a book before bed. This study found that people who were on their phones at bedtime needed more time to fall asleep, spent a lower percentage of their time in bed actually asleep, and slept worse overall.

 

 

3. Improved relationships

Relationships obviously improve when people are calmer, better rested, and have better memories, but research shows relationships are helped in other ways as well when the phones are turned off. There’s a whole new line of research on “technoference” and its impact on relationships. Parents say their co-parenting improves when their phones are put away– they notice each other’s signals and work together more seamlessly.  Researchers have noticed that toddlers disintegrate when mom and dad check their phones and perk back up when devices are turned off. Women report more feelings of depression, lower life satisfaction, and lower relationship satisfaction when technology is allowed to interrupt couple time. Overall, pretty much every relationship in your family and social circle gets a boost when your phone takes a back seat.

 

Clean Router knows every smartphone (and family) needs some downtime.

Order your Clean Router now!

Clean Router for Every Device in Your Home

Feature Friday: Why you should use Clean Router instead of Circle

Posted on by Spencer Thomason

“I have heard about this Circle thing.  How is Clean Router better?”

 

If you have been researching online filtering options, you may have heard or read a bit about Circle, another online parental controls system. However, after trying Circle ourselves, we believe Clean Router can offer a superior filtering experience to Circle. In spite of a few similarities, Clean Router significantly differs from Circle in ways that will impact your family’s online peace of mind.

 

1) Circle’s complicated installation- Setting up Clean Router is as easy as plugging in a router, and our friendly support team walks every new customer through it. Installing Circle, though, was a multi-step process involving app downloads and connecting through multiple networks. For busy parents or grandparents, especially those not confident in their tech skills, Clean Router is faster and easier.

 

2) Circle’s fundamental design is flawed – Unlike Clean Router, Circle is not a router. Users plug into Circle into the network, and it uses something called ARP-spoofing or ARP-poisoning.  Simply put, it tricks everything in the network to talk to Circle instead of your wireless router.

Circle_network

So what? The additional device adds an extra “hop” for all of your network traffic.   Circle causes quite a bit of extra latency to all of your web traffic, slowing down the whole network.  Circle also uses an old wireless protocol (802.11n), which also hurts your internet speed.

Speed aside, this ARP-poisoning also causes other problems.  Many devices are incompatible, and we have even heard users report that Circle broke their entire network!

 

3) No filter – Unlike Clean Router, which checks every website in real time, Circle does not filter online content.  Users can block certain categories of apps and create lists of approved and blocked websites, but we all know that the internet changes daily.  Clean Router’s IntelliFilter checks every packet that is coming thru from the DNS layer all the way down to the very content itself. We also were disappointed in Circle’s “blocked” page. No reason is given for blocking a website, and the page itself scrolls through Disney content and links to Instagram and Twitter. Parents can imagine how distracting this would be for a kid trying to concentrate on homework, and some of the content presented on the blocked page, while not pornographic, was not quite kid-friendly.

 

4) No dynamic filtering – While Circle asks you to label a website as good or bad, Clean Router understands the internet just does not work that way. What do you do with a site like FoxNews or MSN? Not all the content may measure up to your family’s media standards, blocking an entire news platform would inhibit your online experience.   This is exactly why dynamic filtering is so important. To ensure your family’s online safety, Clean Router checks every word and every picture of every website accessed on your internet network in real time. 

 

5) No support – Need help configuring your filtering or figuring out what URL needs to be white-listed to get a particular site to work?  Have a question about this feature or that feature?  Good luck getting in touch with Circle! The website doesn’t list a support phone number, a email address, a chat option, or any other contact method.  Clean Router provides award-winning US-based support.  Skeptical? Give our guys a call at 520-445-4673, shoot us an email at Support@CleanRouter.com, or go to our website and chat with us live. We won’t be shy about besting Circle in this area!

 

6) iOS- and Android-only controls – The only mechanism that Circle provides for controlling your kids’ devices or managing your network is through an iOS or Android app.  Need to access from a computer?  No luck. On the other hand, Clean Router allows you to access your account from any computer or mobile device!

 

7) No emailed reports – Clean Router delivers a PDF report to your email nightly informing you of each device’s internet activity.  And, we just rolled out our full Smart Reporting v2 that allows you even more control over these reports! This is not a feature offered by Circle.

 

8) Limited scheduling options- Circle only offers three scheduling options for devices: “BedTime” (a time for the internet to turn off for the evening), “Time Limits” (a limit on how much time each device can spend online per day), and “Pause” (turn the internet off temporarily). Clean Router’s scheduling feature allows users to set a schedule for each device in their home for any time of day and any day of the week! For example, if dinner time is always from 6pm to 7pm, you can automatically set the internet to turn off at 6pm every day. If you would like to offer more screen time on Saturdays than Tuesdays, Clean Router (but not Circle) lets you set a different schedule for each day of the week!

 

8) Keywords – Tired of your kid going to every Minecraft site?  Enter “minecraft” into the keywords list, and Clean Router will block any site containing those words.  For Circle users, respite from Minecraft requires hunting for hundreds of different domains and websites.

 

9) No YouTube filtering– With Circle, you’ll have to allow YouTube in all its sleazy glory or block it completely. CleanYouTube, our YouTube filtering service, offers your family the best of YouTube!

 

10) The bypass option– If you hit a page and need to bypass Circle, you’ll need to..

*Sign into the controls on Circle on your phone (since it doesn’t have any web controls)

*Add the website to an approved list

*Wait approximately 60 to 120 minutes (yes, 1 to 2 hours) for the page’s cache to clear

*Go back to your site.  

And then, you have to remember to go and turn it back off!  

Our bypass option made to be used– simple, fast, and secure.

For example, Victoria’s Secret is a popular resource for women’s clothing and cosmetics, but you may not want your twelve year old lingering over the sexy photos. When my wife needs to go to there, this is what she sees:

blockedpage_blacklist

My wife can enter the password, choose 15, 30, or 60 minutes, and hit the Temporary Bypass page.  Clean Router will unblock the site for the amount of time designated. She can do her shopping and leave without having to worry about remembering to re-block the website.  In the time Circle users need to unblock a site, my wife can finish shopping, give herself a pedicure, AND go for a run!

11) Circle is “by Disney” – Circle has a content partnership with Disney.  For users, this means Disney ads a-plenty and product-pushing galore. With such a direct funnel, be prepared for your kids to enter a whole new world of advertisements for the latest Disney gadgets and gizmos.  After you have bought 15 copies of Frozen, and your kids have bought 20 episodes of “Hannah Montana” you might feel a little less hakuna matata. When you’re ready, Clean Router can help you let it go.

 

The Clean Router is truly the ultimate parental control, and we continue to work hard to make sure that your kids are safe online.  We have taken industrial-level filtering, and scaled it down to something easy for parents to use.  If you need any help, our award-winning support team is here to help you achieve online peace of mind. Come partner with us to block all online pornography from your home and take back control of the internet today!

 

 

Order your Clean Router now!

Clean Router Mesh: Fast WiFi in every corner!

Posted on by Rachel Chipman

Wireless internet is fantastic… until it isn’t. When your internet is down to one bar, or you happen to be sitting in the dead zone of your house, you may find yourself wishing for the “good old days” of wires and plugs. Luckily, there’s no need to look to the past; the best days of the internet are no longer yet to come– they are here!

 

Clean Router Mesh provides plugged-in speed without wires in EVERY corner! Our WiFi nodes enhance your Clean Router’s speed and coverage to blanket your home, business, or church with fast, clean internet.

 

WirelessSignal-CleanRouter

No more limiting streaming or online gaming to one corner of the house!

WirelessSignal-CleanRouter-mesh

Your internet network’s “sweet spot” is now wherever you are!

 

Clean Router Mesh is specifically designed to enhance the Clean Router’s performance. Consequently, you must have a Clean Router to use Clean Router Mesh.

 

Clean Router customers, two Clean Router Mesh nodes can be yours for only $99.99!

 

Don’t wait– order your Clean Router Mesh today by clicking here!

 

*A note for long-term Clean Router customers: Thanks for staying with us! If your router is more than two years old, and you would like to purchase Clean Router Mesh, please call us directly.

Feature Friday: The temporary bypass

Posted on by Rachel Chipman

Kids can spend hours a day on social media. Wouldn’t it be nice to limit their access to 15, 30, or 60 minute increments?

 

Victoria’s Secret can be a great place to purchase women’s clothing, but adolescent boys do not need to check out sexy swimsuit and lingerie advertisements. How can one internet filtering system meet the needs of all the members of a household?

 

Sometimes it’s better to be safe than sorry online. Is it possible to set strict filters without compromising internet access in your home?

 

 

Clean Router provides your family the flexibility to decide when certain content is permissible in your home through our temporary bypass system. Any time Clean Router blocks a website, this page appears:

 

blockedpage_blacklist

 

For members of your household not privy to the Clean Router password, this will be the end of the road. More informed family members, however, can select a time period, enter the Clean Router password, and click “Temporary Bypass.”

 

For the amount of time designated, this website is exempt from Clean Router’s restrictions. When time is up, the site is blocked again. Users can request access again, but the password must be re-entered.

 

What does this mean for your family? Clean Router understands the internet is more than “bad sites” and “good sites.” While some content will never measure up to your family’s media standards, other websites have an appropriate time and place. We’ll let you decide precisely when that time and place is with conveniently and without compromising your online peace of mind.

 

Ready to protect your family with Clean Router? Click here to get started!

 

To learn more about what Clean Router can do to protect your family, visit our website and check out the Feature Friday section of our blog!

What’s wrong with cat videos? Check out the newest Clean Router video!

Posted on by Rachel Chipman

The internet has two big problems: porn and cat videos. What’s wrong with cat videos? Watch our new video below to find out!

 

 

Keep cat videos in their place with our Clean Router Proven Process!

Complete the set-up wizard
Name your devices
Enable text and email notifications
Customize time restrictions
Bookmark Settings.CleanRouter.com

Order your Clean Router now!

Feature Friday: Torpedoing Torrents

Posted on by Rachel Chipman

Do you know what a torrent is?

 

A torrent is a filesharing method normally used for less-than-savory purposes. Think downloading pirated movies or accessing free pornographic content. Many internet filters don’t block them.

 

Clean Router does.

 

If you have Clean Router protecting your home, it doesn’t matter if you know what a torrent is. We do, and we have your back. Our developers are constantly looking into the latest threats to your online peace of mind and blocking them from your home. Torrents? Torpedoed. New porn sites? Blacklisted. New way to circumvent a filter? We’re on it!

 

With Clean Router, you can trust that you have cutting edge filtering for your home– even if it has been years since you purchased your Clean Router. Our regular updates fine-tune the filters and keep your internet speed running faster than ever before.

 

Let Clean Router torpedo the torrents, block pornography from your home, and provide you with online peace of mind!

 

Order your Clean Router today!Learn tips to keep your kids safe online

Feature Friday: Why You Should Choose Clean Router

Posted on by Rachel Chipman

So Clean Router blocks all online pornography, filters every device in your home, provides you with internet activity reports, has customizable features, allows you to remotely log in and change your settings, and allows you to go around the filter when necessary. Is that good? For those new to internet filtering products, it’s hard to appreciate what Clean Router can do without a little comparison shopping. Here are a few things we do that other internet filters do not, and an explanation of why our extra features matter.

 

1) Clean Router touches EVERY device in your home

The most popular internet filter model is a software that parents download onto a certain number of devices. Some companies charge for each device, others do not. (For the record, we do not charge per device.) We believe that this approach, while better than nothing, fails to ensure that all online pornography is blocked from your home. For example, when (not if!) your teenager has a friend over, the friend will likely have a smart phone in his pocket. Suddenly pornography has a way into your home! Your child or teen may borrow or purchase another device without your knowledge. This would also leave your home and family members vulnerable.

 

Your home should be a sanctuary and a refuge from smut. We can make that happen. Because our filtering software is programmed into the router, not the device, Clean Router automatically filters any and every device that accesses your internet connection. With Clean Router, you know that accessing online pornography inside your home simply is not possible.

 

2) Clean Router provides customizable settings

Many filters provide limited options, so you are stuck with a filter that is either overzealous or under protective. If your filter is overzealous, the internet becomes frustrating at best and unusable at worst.

Clean Router allows you to fully customize your settings again and again. If you initially set your filters too low, go in and make them stronger. If your kids have grown enough that your previous filter settings seem excessive, you can reduce them in with just a few clicks!

We even allow you to make exceptions to your filters. If a website that you regularly visit and trust has been blocked, you can easily add it to the White List and enjoy unrestricted access. If there is a website that you use but don’t feel is appropriate for your kids (think Victoria’s Secret or an art website), you can temporarily bypass the filter without compromising your family’s safety. If a website slipped through the filters, just add it to the Black List, and our filters will block it in the future.

 

3) Clean Router filters in real time

Some internet filters (especially older ones) filter based off of lists. They block the websites and keywords on their lists, and allow everything else.

Clean Router has dynamic filters, which means our software scans each page looking for inappropriate content (with the exception of any website on our user-generated White List). It does not matter if a web page was clean last week– that page will be blocked today if pornographic content since your previous visit. The reverse is true too. If a page previously contained illicit content, but the content was deleted, Clean Router’s filters will allow access.

The internet is a constantly changing place. Filters cannot rely on lists from one or two or five years ago to consistently block all porn from your home. With Clean Router, you can be confident that our filters will examine even the most recent content.

 

When we were developing Clean Router, we saw a void that needed to be filled. No other internet filtering products provided all the features necessary to provide peace of mind. Your internet filter must touch every device in your home to ensure that pornography does not enter. Filters are notorious for hampering the online experience, so customizable settings are essential to growing families who want to enjoy the internet. Static filters may have worked in the late ’90s, but dynamic filtering systems are the only way to protect your family online.

 

Protecting families online is a big job, but we are up for the task! Why? Because here at Clean Router, we believe that online peace of mind is not just possible– it’s essential!

 

Testimonial Tuesday: Marie A.

Posted on by Rachel Chipman

Welcome to Testimonial Tuesday! Each week we are going to share with you a testimonial from one of our passionate customers. They will share their experiences with us as well as their favorite features of the Clean Router.

 

“I am so happy with the new router. The Internet is running faster than it has for a long time. I appreciate Clean Router and the safety net, but I am excited by the speed of this new router.

Thanks for your help.

Thanks for your extra mile when I feel so insecure about tech stuff.

Thanks for your friendly service.

Thanks for the new router.”

 

Marie A.

Lindon, Utah