Parental controls in the browser: Chrome, Edge and Safari

Chrome: three modes in Family Link

Chrome settings for a child sit in Family Link, next to the child's Google account, rather than in the browser itself. A parent picks one of three modes: allow all sites, try to block explicit sites, or only allow approved sites.

The first filters nothing. The second hides openly adult material and is what most families run. The third turns the internet into a whitelist: only the addresses a parent adds by hand will open. That works for a seven-year-old and starts an arms race with a teenager.

Two lists work on top of the mode: approved sites and blocked sites. An address on the approved list opens even under the strictest mode; an address on the blocked list never opens.

Site permissions are separate: location, camera and microphone. On a Chromebook you also decide whether the child can install extensions from the Chrome Web Store.

Windows: the filter runs in Edge, other browsers close

On Windows the job belongs to Microsoft Family Safety, and one detail shapes everything else: its web filters work only in Microsoft Edge, and only while the child is signed in to their Microsoft account.

That is why turning on "Filter inappropriate websites" blocks the other browsers outright, and Chrome and Firefox simply will not start. The reasoning is plain: a filter you can escape by installing another browser filters nothing.

Blocked and allowed site lists live in the same content filter section for that child. One step comes before any of this: make sure the child account is a standard account rather than an administrator, or the settings come off with built-in tools.

iPhone and iPad: web content in Screen Time

The path is long but identical on every Apple device: Settings → Screen Time → your child's profile → Content & Privacy Restrictions → App Store, Media, Web & Games → Web Content.

Three options: unrestricted access, limit adult websites, or allowed websites only. Inside the second one you can keep your own lists of permitted and blocked addresses.

The setting lives in system restrictions rather than inside Safari, and it is locked behind the Screen Time passcode. That passcode should differ from the phone passcode, because the child watches a parent type that one every day.

Where a browser filter ends

A second browser. Windows is the exception here. Everywhere else the filter sits in one app while another one installs beside it, and the whole thing starts over. Google's help page on Chrome and your child's Google Account says so itself: on a Windows, Mac or Linux computer, a child can sign out of Chrome or use another browser, and Family Link settings for Chrome won't apply there.

In-app browsers. A link opened from a messenger or a short-video feed renders inside that app. The browser holding your filter never takes part.

Image and video search. Safe search is a separate switch in every service: Google, YouTube and your image search of choice are three different settings. YouTube has its own walkthrough.

DNS changes and VPN. A setting that lives inside a browser leaves with that browser. What children actually try first is in the piece on getting around controls.

What parents put next to the filter

A router covers the whole home network and does not care which browser is running. It stops at the front door: outside, the phone switches to mobile data. The step-by-step is in the router guide.

The second layer is the device itself: category filtering, safe search, an alert when a blocked address is requested. In Gardion that is one settings page covering the computer and the phone, and it holds whatever browser the child prefers. What it looks like on a computer is on the parental controls for Windows page.

The third layer is time. Half of the questions about websites turn out to be questions about the whole evening, and a daily limit with a schedule answers those faster than any list of addresses.