Youth protection filter at the router: what are your options for all devices?

Your child has a smartphone, a tablet and a console, and the smart TV hangs in the living room. A youth protection filter at the router works from one place: it blocks certain websites for every device on your Wi-Fi. You don't have to install anything on your children's devices.

There are three ways. They solve different things, so here is the overview by category.

Most families get furthest with two ways: router protection for the Wi-Fi at home, plus the built-in tools from Apple or Google on the smartphone for times and apps.

A filter service works with DNS, the phone book of the internet: your device asks it for the number address of a site, and for blocked sites the filter simply doesn't answer. So it sees addresses, not messages and not content inside an allowed site. More in our article "What does protection without surveillance mean?" (German only for now).

The router's parental controls work differently: they are a function of the router software. AVM describes it for the FRITZ!Box like this: for your children's smartphone, laptop or tablet you set individually when and where they may move on the web and how long they may be online. Which lists the FRITZ!Box uses for this, we haven't checked. The comparison with sources is in our German article "Parental controls: Fritz!Box, Internet-Schutzschild or app?".

• Mobile data: If your child switches from Wi-Fi to mobile data, the router is no longer involved. Only a setting on the device helps then.
• VPN and own settings: Anyone who sets up a VPN or enters their own provider for address lookups in the browser bypasses the filter. Why a filter sometimes doesn't work is explained in Why parental controls sometimes don't work.
• Time limits: A filter service at the router knows no screen time. You need the router's parental controls or an app.
• No filter is airtight: JusProg says so itself about its software. The best protection remains talking about the rules.

JusProg is a youth protection programme from the non-profit JusProg e. V. According to its website, the FSM, which assesses such programmes, has rated several JusProg versions as suitable under the German Interstate Treaty on the Protection of Minors in the Media. There are apps for single devices and, with JusProgDNS, a variant that according to the provider can also be set up on routers and smart TVs. For families JusProg is free according to the provider. It's a serious option, which we compare in more detail in our German article "Internet-Schutzschild, JusProg or AdGuard Home?".

We sell the Internet-Schutzschild. It is a step-by-step guide that enters a filter service at the router and sets up phone profiles. Our clear recommendation is your own AdGuard DNS account: it holds your family's protection profile, and if you like, we create it directly in your account with one click. The free plan covers up to five devices and a monthly query allowance; for more there is a subscription that we consider inexpensive (as of October 2026). Disclosure: if you sign up with AdGuard through the links in our guide, we receive a commission from AdGuard. If you don't want an account, use AdGuard's free public family filter. If you want to run everything yourself, set up your own protection server at home with our Home-Guide.

You pay us for the guide, not for the filter. So you can also go this way without us. If you prefer to be guided, the guide gives you the steps in German and tips on closing the most common workarounds. For the Fritz!Box we are also preparing a largely automatic setup. The filter service blocks known adult and phishing sites (fake pages that steal passwords) and, depending on the setup, a lot of ads. It doesn't set time limits, and on mobile data only the profile on the phone works.

Which times and rules apply in your home is better settled at the kitchen table than in the router. A template for that is the media agreement.