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[Ronski]

I'm trying to block certain URL's and keywords as per here

On the Zyxel this seems to be done via Parental Controls, except it doesn't seem to work.

Also long URL's such as amzdigitaldownloads.edgesuite.net are cut short, in this case losing the the last two letters.

The current firmware version is 1.00(AAKL.6), can anybody confirm this works better in a later firmware?



I'm not very impressed with this modem/router any more :-(

[PhilipD]

Hi

I can confirm on the latest 11b2 firmware that the website Url is still restricted to 31 characters.  Can you just add in the first part such as "amzdigitaldownloads" it doesn't appear to need to be the full Url, it does part matching.

Regards

Phil

[Ronski]

Thanks Phil, but does it actually work, I didn't  seem to have much success.

[PhilipD]

Hi

I did a test with a part word, did bbc, and that blocked all access to the bbc website, this is using the 11b2 firmware.

Regards

Phil

[kitz]

Just tested it here, using keyword 'bbc' and it blocks all for for me too

Using 1.00(AAKL.6)b1

Attached are the settings I used.

[Ronski]

Thanks for the replies, had another go this morning and it seems to be working, I may have neglected to tick the active box 

However that said it's still very broken, URL's are too short, you're not allowed to use the dash (montoya-ota), last time I looked that was a perfectly acceptable character to have in a URL.

I initially tested with BBC as a keyword then added my others, and it was still working, then I deleted BBC from the list, but I still can't access the BBC website unless I disable the rule, now that's very broken!

Phil perhaps you'd be kind enough to test if the dash is permitted, and also after adding a list of keywords then deleting one keyword if you can access the deleted site.

Edit: Even though I deleted the rule that did have BBC in it, once I create another rule I then can't access the BBC website again, it even blocks this forum thread due to the keywords being on the page, surely it should only be looking at the URL not the content?

[PhilipD]

Hi

Yes I can confirm the ZyXEL is not removing previously added entries even though they show as removed in the interface, so adding BBC it is blocked, delete the rule, BBC is available again, add a new rule for 'kitz' and set to active then 'kitz' is blocked but so is the BBC despite that rule having been deleted.  I'm guessing (not tried this) it may correct itself after a router restart and is because the router is caching entries in order to speed up the filtering, and on removing entries the firmware isn't invalidating the cache.

It does appear to block the word appearing anywhere, this is probably wanted so that navigating to an ip address of the website rather than the Url would still work as typically the website name will appear somewhere in the page.

The parental controls do seem to be broken, although even if working 100% they will never work too well just filtering the words/Url, the better option is a router that uses a third party service to block content, although typically that requires a monthly subscription.

It would be worth emailing ZyXEL support and point back to this thread so they have the information of the problem.

Regards

Phil

[Ronski]

Thanks very much for confirming that Phil.

What it really needs is two types of filtering.

• URL keyword filtering, also allowing full URL entry.
• Keyword filtering where the keyword appears anywhere.

I'll email Zyxel support with a link to this thread.

[Ronski]

Unbelievable,  having told Zyxel that this problem still exists in firmware 11B2 they asked me to try V100AAKL10C0!

[PhilipD]

Hi

I'm guessing that's 1st line technical support you got a response from, at least they didn't ask you turn it off for 30 minutes then back on   

Regards

Phil

[Ronski]

Now they've asked me what company  I'm working for and if it was supplied by my ISP. What the relevance of that is to the bugs I've reported I've no idea.

[Ronski]

Just to update I've had a reply from ZyXel

Hi,

So i have had the following response from HQ

Thanks for your mail.
I tried many ways to duplicate the issue.

Firmware: (AAKL.10)c0 and (AAKL.11) b2
1. Add bbc Parental Control Profile(PCP) (keyword ‘bbc’) – delete bbc profile - add kitz profile (keyword ‘kitz’)
2. Active - Disable PCP
3. Add ‘bbc’ – apply – delete ‘bbc’ - apply - add ‘kitz’ – apply at Site/URL Keyword
4. Delete ‘bbc’ – add ‘kitz’ – apply at Site/URL Keyword
Checked each part and the Parental Control are all PASS.

Could you provide more clearly and detailed procedures for us?     

Bit odd they can't reproduce it.

[Dray]

Sounds like they didn't actually test the blocking at each step, simply observed the display.

[Ronski]

I've emailed them back with the specific steps, doubt I could make it much clearer.

My reply.

I suspect if the device is rebooted between changes then the problem will not happen so it is important not to reboot the device.

Add BBC as a keyword and verify you cannot access www.bbc.co.uk

Now delete the keyword BBC

You should now be able to access www.bbc.co.uk

Now create a new rule with kitz as the key word

Make sure you can not access www.kitz.co.uk

If you can not access kitz then try www.bbc.co.uk, in our tests on two different devices this fails, and BBC is still blocked when there is an active rule.     

[kitz]