A few weeks ago, we introduced Parental Controls as part of our v2.2 update. To help you get started, we’ve added a detailed guide to our documentation site.
We value your feedback and would love to hear your thoughts on the new Parental Controls feature. If you have any suggestions, ideas for improvements, or requests for future updates, please share them with us in this post. Your inputs will help us make this feature even better!
Parental controls is hugely important, the #1 feature for me, since it will allow me to give E phones to my kids, once Parental Controls is hardened.
Main gap now that I see is that app ratings are inconsistent in app stores, ie its possible to install Aurora Store from F-droid (via Murena App lounge), Tor clients that subvert DNS filtering, or apps in Google Play that purposely have “everyone” rating but are meant to hide things from parents, like famous fake “calculator” app which is a hidden browser and photo/video storage app. App store ratings cannot be relied upon.
E OS may catch some of these holes, but to really secure the phone we should block ability to install any app without specifying parental code.
A better solution yet, which would also cater to digital minimalists would be to add ability to hide apps. In parental control section, after entering parent contr code, one would be able to hide App Lounge and any other app that a person deems risky or distracting. Other custom phone OS companies are hiding useless apps to enable focus, there’s a big demand for it: light phone, wisephone, sunbeam phone, balance phone etc
This feature would ensure apps with wrong ratings don’t slip in, also it would make Murena phones 100x as productive for people and give E OS a huge edge / differentiation from ios and android, since people could finally turn off the endless streams of distractions, and make Murena / E OS a positive force / productive tool in their lives, and not a source of distractions / waste of time that nearly all phones are. Also, no more folders with countless unused apps like ios and android, just a clean set of whats needed. Good luck!
Hi there. I haven’t tried the new download yet on my daughters Fairphone but what I think we really need is a way of limiting her phone time automatically, I mean that it automatically tells her she’s used her limit for the day. Perhaps more time can be set up for weekends or holidays, with a manuel override if there’s a valid need, and perhaps certain apps that could be exempt like emergency calls, dictionary or calculator for school work. I currently have a very complicated app lock but i can’t manage her overall use in a central way. I can’t see that there’s a time limitor from wht i’ve read about the new parental controls although the uses i’ve seen (age restrictions and limited access to app downloads etc) seem great. Thanks for your continued work in this area. Thank you from all tired, working, single mums who love their kids everywhere.
I had a tablet for my son running LineageOS with Microg (no stable /e/ for the tablet when I got it), and I had a pretty good experience with just disabling Aurora with adb in command line. I’d enable it and let him go “shopping” then shut it back down. This is probably not something most people want to hassle with, but it does show that it should be easy enough to implement with a GUI front-end, perhaps?
Is it possible to block permission changes? I think some apps are ok for the child, if they does not leak position or take photos. Some apps are ok, if they don’t get network access.
Blocking the complete App-Lounge was my first idea when I heard from parental control and I still think this could be a good idea.
In order to improve the Parental Controls people need a framework to operate off off before suggesting anythingto educate and understand what it is you are trying to adjust. In the US First, COPPA is something every parent should understand, This article is a couple of years old but still applies.
First know that Google play store can be wrong, about a lot of things
Next,
Google is not the arbiter of what is or isn’t true, civil, or decent, you need to do some research.
Cloudflare will do some of site filtering yes, but then does the parent create a blacklist of other sites? I honestly did not check.
Where did you get the criteria for each of the age group filters on what basis do you identify the content with the age? and then somehow filter apps and sites? what is the algorithm? Is it internationally accepted algorithm based on child psychology and behaviour and the research of the day?
For parents in the US you can read the definition of COPPA (US) here. Its the only Federal law that protects kids on line in the US This is your baseline.
Ethics and legislations come first not Google and the school systems.
If all /e does is pass on the ratings and apps as they come in from Google then its garbage in and garbage out Its not just about violence and porn sites. That’ only half the issue, Its about the data that is collected from kids thru surveillance, lies and deceit in the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy’s of the apps, The Google play store is a target for bad actors, If /e would try to do some additional filtering and intel, auditing or detection of the apps for children’s data privacy violations that would be going a long way. Don’t just take Googles word!!
