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Why Block Porn: For your husband/wife

Posted on June 14, 2021June 14, 2021 by Rachel Chipman

This installment of our “Why Block Porn” series focuses on pornography’s impact on marriages and spouses.

Like smoking, pornography has the greatest impact on users. However, like secondhand smoke, people close to pornography users can be drastically affected. The user’s spouse in particular suffers intensely.

And yet, pornography users often think the only people they are only hurting themselves. Here are several reasons why “secondhand porn” is so destructive.

Porn ruins your spouse’s self-esteem

It’s bad enough that everywhere your wife looks she sees photoshopped bikini models, “Ten ways to keep him interested,” “Get rid of stretch marks overnight,” and “Lose 15 pounds in 5 days!” Now even her husband is fascinated with made-up, surgically enhanced, and digitally altered actresses.

Husbands are vulnerable as well. Pornography depicts unrealistic male bodies as well as physiologically impossible results. With all the pixelated fireworks, men often feel they can’t measure up.

Porn takes your spouse’s marriage

After watching pornography, viewers reported being less in love with their spouse than before. Spouses of porn addicts find that their loving, caring partner is replaced by a moody, secretive stranger. When your spouse realizes that his/her spouse’s feelings are waning, the intimacy and trust in that relationship decrease as well.

Porn attacks your spouse’s mental health

After learning their spouse has been viewing pornography, most spouses feel angry, hurt, and betrayed. But for some, the emotional effects continue and get stronger. Many spouses experience anxiety and depression. To make matters worse, they feel incredibly lonely as they feel they must keep their partner’s secret, so they have no one to turn to. Research shows a form of PTSD is common among the injured spouse when pornography or other forms of infidelity have damaged the marriage.

Regardless of what you may have thought, pornography is not a victimless habit. For the sake of your spouse (future or otherwise), please block pornography from your house.

Kick porn out of your marriage with Clean Router, the original content filter router! Set an internet curfew to avoid late-night relapses, use our browser history logs for accountability, and block all porn sites with cutting-edge multi-layer filtering. Isn’t it about time you took back your marriage?

Order your Clean Router today!

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

Posted on June 7, 2021October 14, 2021 by Spencer Thomason

“I have heard of/used/tried and hated Circle. 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.

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 – 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, but blocking an entire news platform would inhibit your online experience. This is 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, an 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 there, this is what she sees:

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!

Everything your kids need in a phone… Nothing they don’t. Introducing Clean Phone!

Posted on April 15, 2021June 10, 2021 by Rachel Chipman

Finally, a safe smartphone for teens!

Does your kid need a phone, but not unlimited access to TikTok, Candy Crush, and YouTube? In the past, families had to choose between giving their kids 24/7 access to the entire internet (scary!) and buying a “dumb phone” (so not cool!).

Not anymore! Clean Phone is a full smartphone with robust parental controls for scheduling, automatic logging, and approving app downloads. CleanYouTube and Clean Browser are built-in!

Clean Phone extends your Clean Router’s protection beyond your walls. Whether your kids are on vacation or at a friend’s house, Clean Phone is the easiest and most flexible way to protect your family!

Order your Clean Router today!

Surprise! Black Friday is here!

Posted on November 16, 2020June 10, 2021 by Rachel Chipman

2020 has been a tough year for all of us, so we’re bringing the holiday cheer early this year! That’s right– Black Friday is here! Use the code CLEANBLACK FRIDAY at checkout to get 20% off any new Clean Router subscription for life!

More families than ever before are using Clean Router to protect their homes. With school closed, parents working from home, and child care space limited, there’s no way today’s parents can do it all. Clean Router offers parents the chance to know their children are safe online without the hassle of hanging over their shoulders. Our multi-layer filtering system is completely customizable, so you can adjust and re-adjust the settings to fit your growing family’s needs.

This is the ONLY time of year we have a sale, so don’t wait! Get your Clean Router today before this promotion ends.

Clean Router is the only wireless parental controls router with content filtering on the market. Our easy to use custom controls, packet filtering, cutting edge security, and top-notch support make us the best choice for busy parents who want to block porn and other adult content from their homes and keep their kids safe online. Clean Router is suitable for home and office use. Questions? Give us a call at 520-445-4673 or email us at support@cleanrouter.com.

Order your Clean Router today!

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

Posted on August 26, 2019June 10, 2021 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.

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!

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

Posted on June 3, 2019June 10, 2021 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!

Three reasons to turn off your smartphone today

Posted on September 25, 2017July 23, 2020 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 Mesh: Fast WiFi in every corner!

Posted on March 23, 2017July 17, 2020 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.

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

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 March 17, 2017 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:

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!