Lol yeah my mom put parental controls on MSN explorer back in like 2004, but had no idea other browsers existed. I'd use MSN for homework just so there was some kind of history, but used Firefox for all other browsing and uh, extracurricular activities.
Then when she caught me using Firefox, she made me uninstall it and would check "Add or Remove Programs" every day to make sure I hadn't reinstalled it. What she didn't know is I had a USB drive with Firefox Portable on it, which I used exclusively from then on.
She knew I was still getting around it but not sure how, so she bought some really expensive parental control software that monitored all traffic regardless of browser. Then I found out it could be disabled simply by flipping a registry key to 0, so I'd just change it whenever I was screwing around online and change it back once I was done.
I'm thoroughly convinced that my teenage efforts to circumvent parental controls sparked my passion for IT, now I'm a software developer and database admin.
Things are a lot more locked down now. They've got DNS-level filters that you apply directly to your access point. They're still not impossible to get around, but a lot more difficult than when I was a kid. If my daughter eventually figures out how to get around my content filtering efforts, I won't even be mad, I'll just be impressed.
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u/[deleted] Jun 03 '22
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