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Information: Smart Hub Parental Controls not working properly with some browsers

Ben570
Established Contributor
Established Contributor

Hi community,

This is an informative post more than a question. I have been having issues with parental controls not blocking adult websites including those with obvious related words in their names, (e.g. p***hub.com) and EE have been investigating for a number of weeks now.

They have provided a workaround while they are looking for a proper fix, but essentially it comes down to newer versions of browsers like Edge or Chrome having a  new experimental feature called TLS 1.3 hybridized Kyber support enabled which breaks the parental controls feature. My loose understanding is that this is because the feature uses a new type of cryptographic algorithm in the browser session that makes it more private and instead of getting the EE banner *Access to this website has been blocked* page, the browser will display its own inbuilt "The connection for this site is not secure" page because EE's parental control systems can't intercept it properly. However, with TLS 1.3 hybridized Kyber support enabled (which it is by default in the latest browser updates) the user can hit the refresh button repeatedly until the browser complies and loads the site that should be blocked.

I am putting EE's workaround here as I understand it is not just my account that is affected, but likely anybody using this the parental controls may be affected. The current workaround is to disable this experimental browser feature as follows:

1. In your browser, type or paste the following setting URL into the address bar and hit enter: chrome://flags/#enable-tls13-kyber

2. Change the TLS 1.3 hybridized Kyber support flag to *Disabled*.

3. Close and re-open the browser.

Best of luck.

 

43 REPLIES 43
Christopher_G
EE Community Support Team

Hi @charlienormand 

Have you tried emailing Matthew back? Was there any contact information for his team on the email(s) that he sent you?

Chris

dellybeanhead
Contributor
Contributor

@JordanTA Is there any update on this yet please?

I tried, no direct reply… a spontaneous phone call from someone (no pre warning text), saying they would call back tomorrow.  But tonight… it appears (touch wood…) that they have fixed it.

has it been fixed for anyone else?

Got a call today, apparently they push a EE new firmware to my home router and that has fixed it 

JimM11
Brilliant Contributor
Brilliant Contributor

@charlienormand If they have then the latest that was is posted below if you need to do any compare for the Plus version.

FW: r2.68.18-R-1303195-PROD-83002 and the gui is at App version 2.36.4. 11/02/2025

 

dellybeanhead
Contributor
Contributor

Not working for me. Safe search still npot being enforced and no filtering at all.

How do you force an upgrade of the firmware version. I can't see it on my Smarthub plus which is running r1.35.0-R-1138091-PROD-83002

 

 

JimM11
Brilliant Contributor
Brilliant Contributor

@dellybeanhead No FW updates can be forced, the router will be updated when EE get round to sending and applying it, normally early hours of the morning, just make sure that your router is on...

Hope so. I wonder if I can request it,. Did you request it or get priority as you have a case open. Looking at your s/w rev it seems mine is significantly behind and has not been udated for a long time. 

 

JimM11
Brilliant Contributor
Brilliant Contributor

@dellybeanhead I am on the same software as you have, there has been 5 (five) later updated version's reported since then, i posted what is the latest and confirmed by user.

I’m now on (not sure what I was on before):

App version:
2.36.4
Firmware version:
r2.68.17-R-1303190-PROD-83002

on a plus box