topic Re: Sky broadband shield is not blocking anything in Broadband

Sky broadband shield is not blocking anything

Circlemaker — Sun, 03 Mar 2024 12:03:23 GMT

I just changed over to Sky broadband, I have two children so I opened my sky app and checked the broadband shield to make sure all content which is unsuitable is blocked by adding a tick next to violence, suicide, drugs, porn etc and saved it, it is set to permenantly on - I even manually blocked p.hub, however any search for unsuitable content is delivered without anything being blocked, and access to the sites is completely unrestricted. Why is this happening?

Re: Sky broadband shield is not blocking anything

peter-marlow+1966 — Sun, 03 Mar 2024 12:20:40 GMT

Did you also set the age restriction

Re: Sky broadband shield is not blocking anything

Circlemaker — Sun, 03 Mar 2024 15:29:34 GMT

I set it to custom so I could control what was and wasn't allowed (for instance gaming and social netyworks). I reset the hub, it blocks whats allowed on my laptop but not on my phone. I have the controls set exactly the same on both laptop and phone. I spoke with a Sky agent and they suggested typing in the website exclusions, until I reminded her it may mean searching out and finding the urls of probably 100's of thousands if not millions of porn sites and drug sites, and violence sites etc. They couldn't suggest what the issue was and said it must be to do with an incompatibility issue with the device. I am using iPhone 12, if there is an issue because of that it's a hugely disappointing factor of their service. I have opted to switch back to BT rather than have my two children view sensitive subject matter on their phones.

Re: Sky broadband shield is not blocking anything

xenon81 — Sun, 03 Mar 2024 15:56:53 GMT

Apple now has a thing called Private Relay where your internet traffic is routed through Apple's servers and bypasses any filters set by your ISP. As you're now connected to a new WiFi network it will be switched on by default.

Try the instructions listed on https://support.apple.com/en-sg/guide/iphone/iph499d287c2/ios

under

Turn iCloud Private Relay off

and

Turn iCloud Private Relay on or off for a Wi-Fi network

Re: Sky broadband shield is not blocking anything

Chrisee — Sun, 03 Mar 2024 16:32:13 GMT

@Circlemaker Sky's Broadband Shield is a relatively crude filter which requires the decice being used to route traffic via Sky's DNS system. If your phone has custom DNS settings or is using a VPN it wil bypass the filter.

Re: Sky broadband shield is not blocking anything

Lummox8 — Mon, 01 Apr 2024 16:17:10 GMT

This answers my question perfectly, but raises another dilemma.

My teenage son also worked this out, and manually changed the dns on the PlayStation.

So how do I block the internet ????

Other than unplugging the broadband hub.... have you any suggestions?
Any help greatly appreciated 😀

Re: Sky broadband shield is not blocking anything

jamesn123 — Tue, 02 Apr 2024 13:11:28 GMT

@Lummox8

You can't with Sky's tools. You'd need a 3rd party solution

Re: Sky broadband shield is not blocking anything

Jan22222 — Tue, 09 Sep 2025 19:23:55 GMT

I'm having the same issue it's never worked and I've been with sky years I've tried setting the age ive tried custom I've done certain times nothing works

but then when my tv buffers I do a check and it tells me everything's fine always issues I've considered going over to EE you can turn individual devices off apparently with their Internet

Re: Sky broadband shield is not blocking anything

Jan22222 — Tue, 09 Sep 2025 19:26:05 GMT

Switch to EE