Whitelist on parental controls and Antivirus
1. Whitelisting - Parental Controls Filtering
Parental controls played a big part in our decision in selecting this mesh router, but unlike most parental control apps, this has no whitelist, so if a filter category blocks a site you need your child to access to for school or something else, you have to unblock the entire category which is counterproductive.
Previously in other parental control apps when I had to blacklist certain apps or complex sites I would have to research the various servers involved such as cdns, apis, etc. on the flip side for whitelisting I would have to add those same individually to the whitelist to counter the blocking being done by a category to allow a website or app and all its features to be fully functional. I notice with the deco app you can block an app or website by searching for it without needing to list all the urls that are involved, but what else does that affect or block? For example, we blocked YouTube specifically and have the Teen filter on (see screenshot), but our child needs to be able to use Google Docs for school assignments and it seems to be blocked. I haven't figured out any category that would be blocking it. Does adding "YouTube" block apis and other services that are needed for Google Drive/Google Docs or other Google Services?
2. Whitelisting for Antivirus
So I noticed in the report that the antivirus sometimes blocks a vpn or anonymizer. We utilize email services that go through VPNs, we have VPNs for work, and private VPNs for some of our mobile devices and a laptop. I use Cloudflare Warp VPN, Norton 360 VPN, I've tried a VPN through AT&T over my WiFi that continues when I leave the house, ( on some occasions I have used PhotonVPN though mostly testing. I get interruptions on these sometimes so I switch (mostly prefer Norton) when one goes down. I keep a VPN active on my phone and iPad, and my laptop uses my work vpn during the day. Anyway it would be nice if, just like on the computer if I disagree when a file or site is blocked by my antivirus software I can add an exception or whitelist it. I should be able to do the same with a site being blocked by my router that could be a false positive or is something I want in spite of a triggered "malware/warning" due to various algorithms or rules. This is not a common circumstance but there is almost always at least one or two permanent items on my computer over the life of my security software I end of whitelisting.