topic Re: Safeguard not enforcing google safe search in Everything else

Safeguard not enforcing google safe search

CuriousSideny — Thu, 27 Feb 2025 00:00:36 GMT

As of maybe a week ago, Safeguard is no longer preventing me from turning off safe search mode in my browser (see attachment for an example of me searching via google.com).

The normal website blocking of categories do still seem to be working correctly.

My primary/secondary DNS servers are pointing to the right SafeGuard addresses: 213.120.234.42, 213.120.234.38 (see DNS attachment).

This happened around about this time last year too around about the time my Broadband IP address changed, which seemed to be somehow related, and was eventually resolved but I was never sure how or by who.

My investigations last time led me to understand that this is something that PlusNet need to get BT to fix since the SafeGuard DNS service is owned by them.

When I request for example "google.com" via DNS, when it is working correctly it should actually return the IP address of something like "forcesafesearch.google.com" (or whatever it currently is) rather than that of the normal "google.com". My understanding is that this is accomplished by BT's DNS server knowing that when requests come via my routers IP address it should return the alternative IP address instead of the regular one.

(see https://community.plus.net/t5/Everything-else/Safeguard-not-working-at-all/td-p/1946414/page/3)

Thanks for your help.

Re: Safeguard not enforcing google safe search

Marsh — Thu, 27 Feb 2025 15:57:40 GMT

Hey @CuriousSideny,

This definitely seems like a strange one as our Safeguard only uses the primary/secondary DNS to block websites as if you were to remove the DNS safeguard will just not work also it does not interact with any safe-search options on browsers for it not to let you toggle the option and it displaying no errors is also weirder.

So we can test if its a browser issue you can try toggling SafeSearch on a different browser like Microsoft Edge

Re: Safeguard not enforcing google safe search

CuriousSideny — Sun, 02 Mar 2025 18:54:50 GMT

Hi Marsh, thanks for your response.

This has impacted all devices in my house, from Android phones to Windows PCs, the experience change has been the same and in all previous cases they were not able to disable safesearch.

Note that the person who raised this community post had the opposite problem https://community.plus.net/t5/Tech-Help-Software-Hardware-etc/Safeguard-and-Google-Safesearch/td-p/1994607

Another way that some ISP protect against this thumbnail views being visible is to append &safe=active (under the hood) to google searches (for example) to again prevent the option even appearing to the searcher:. For example try following this URL https://www.google.co.uk/imghp?hl=en&safe=active&ogbl? and you will find that, depending on your search terms, it will show "SafeSearch filtering is on" with no means to disable it.

Given that the behaviour has changed, would it be possible to reach out to BT about this?

Thanks!

Re: Safeguard not enforcing google safe search

Townman — Sun, 02 Mar 2025 23:15:18 GMT

Safeguard does not alter internet traffic in the manner you suggest. It blocks DNS name resolution of quarantined sites.

Safe search is a feature of search engines - see https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/SafeSearch

Re: Safeguard not enforcing google safe search

CuriousSideny — Mon, 03 Mar 2025 10:23:55 GMT

It definitely has and does. If you search online you can see any number of discussions about the various methods that are used to accomplish this by ISPs. I've mentioned two of them above.

Re: Safeguard not enforcing google safe search

CuriousSideny — Mon, 03 Mar 2025 10:45:42 GMT

As mentioned, for example, here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SafeSearch

SafeSearch can be enforced by local area network administrators and ISPs by adding a DNS record. This is often done on school networks to prevent students from accessing pornographic content

Re: Safeguard not enforcing google safe search

CuriousSideny — Mon, 17 Mar 2025 08:15:52 GMT

Is there a mechanism I can use to raise a support ticket to get this addressed? @Marsh

Thanks!

Re: Safeguard not enforcing google safe search

jab1 — Mon, 17 Mar 2025 08:24:45 GMT

@CuriousSideny Safeguard - the PN mechanism, and Safesearch - the Google one, are totally different.

Re: Safeguard not enforcing google safe search

CuriousSideny — Mon, 17 Mar 2025 08:26:33 GMT

I've already linked above how ISP's can and do enforce safesearch for the various search engines. This was working (across *every single device* in my house, android, Windows, iPad, etc) a few weeks ago.

Re: Safeguard not enforcing google safe search

Marsh — Mon, 17 Mar 2025 12:22:13 GMT

Hey @CuriousSideny,

"Is there a mechanism I can use to raise a support ticket to get this addressed? @Marsh"

Unfortunately not, as this issue is not related to Plusnet. I have asked with one of our Net-ops members, who confirmed that Plusnet SafeGuard does not interact with any browser's safe-search options.

Re: Safeguard not enforcing google safe search

CuriousSideny — Mon, 17 Mar 2025 13:19:06 GMT

It's very strange that it got fixed last time it was raised last year and eventually got resolved. Could your netops guys talk to BT about it?

Re: Safeguard not enforcing google safe search

jab1 — Mon, 17 Mar 2025 13:21:10 GMT

Was last years query on the forums, or over the phone. If it was on forum, can you provide a link?

Re: Safeguard not enforcing google safe search

CuriousSideny — Mon, 17 Mar 2025 13:25:55 GMT

As already linked in the original post: https://community.plus.net/t5/Everything-else/Safeguard-not-working-at-all/td-p/1946414/page/3
Admittedly this was more than just one thing though, as Safeguard in general was also misbehaving - but the experience with safesearch was the same: i.e. that originally when I joined PlusNet and enabled SafeGuard no phone/computer/anything could perform a search and see explicit results, and then something changed and everything suddenly could now see explicit search results. As part of whatever they resolved in the above case it also resolved the safesearch issue and explicit results were no longer able to be viewed (until about 1 month ago).

Re: Safeguard not enforcing google safe search

jab1 — Mon, 17 Mar 2025 13:37:59 GMT

@CuriousSideny Sorry - didn't read back to the original post, but as @Marsh says above, PN SafeGuard and Google safesearch work independently.

It really needs @bobpullen , or someone with his experience/clout, on the job.

Re: Safeguard not enforcing google safe search

outcast — Mon, 17 Mar 2025 14:29:21 GMT

@Marsh

I think you (and others) are not understanding the problem here, and you asked the wrong question of Net-ops.

The answer they gave to the question you asked is true, but that is not the issue.

When Plusnet SafeGuard is switched OFF -

Any DNS requests to google.com should be handled by Plusnet/BT DNS to get results for google.com
In this circumstance the browser SafeSearch buttons should be under the users control.

When Plusnet SafeGuard is switched ON -

Any DNS requests to google.com , Plusnet/BT DNS should get results from forcesafesearch.google.com
In this circumstance the browser buttons are blocked and are indicators that SafeSearch is enforced at network level.

@CuriousSideny 's original observation was -

@CuriousSideny wrote:

As of maybe a week ago, Safeguard is no longer preventing me from turning off safe search mode in my browser

Therefore the expectation was that when Plusnet SafeGuard is enabled, that Google SafeSearch would be active, and when SafeSearch is working that the corresponding browser buttons should be non functional and should only be indicators that SafeSearch rules are being applied.

The question ISN'T how does SafeGuard interact with the browser buttons (which is what @Marsh asked)

The question to Net-ops should be -

"When Plusnet SafeGuard is enabled, why isn't Plusnet's DNS lookup to google.com being redirected to forcesafesearch.google.com, when this was apparently the SafeGuard behaviour until recently ?"

Re: Safeguard not enforcing google safe search

CuriousSideny — Mon, 17 Mar 2025 14:17:51 GMT

Thanks @jab1 - I can see there is a lot of confusion around the topic and specifically about ISP interactions with what we see in our browser, and of course this is so far behind the scenes it's hard even to find authoritative information about what PlusNet (or the underlying provider BT) is providing.

As I've mentioned above (and we can see mentioned in the wikipedia article) it is absolutely possible for an ISP to configure their services in such a way as to prevent various search engine safe search features being configured on the PC/phone. I mention a few possible ways this can be accomplished above (DNS mapping to a slightly different URL which won't show a configurable safe search, or the others which adjust the request to include a flag which causes the search engine to not return such results).

I suspect the challenge in this case is that BT (or OpenReach or whatever) are the provider of this mechanism which PlusNet and others leverage (as I mentioned before, the SafeGuard DNS addresses show they are owned by BT).

Re: Safeguard not enforcing google safe search

outcast — Sun, 23 Mar 2025 14:21:48 GMT

Is anyone else using Google SafeSearch who can confirm whether it is working or not when SafeGuard is enabled ?

It is unusual for a topic of this sort to have dragged on for a month with no one else chiming in saying "it works for me".

Re: Safeguard not enforcing google safe search

Macca2 — Sun, 23 Mar 2025 22:09:51 GMT

I've recently joined Plusnet and, over the last couple of days, have been trying to check Safeguard works as I'd expect. Pornography is blocked amongst other things and I've rebooted the hub after activating.

When I search for pornography on Google, it lists some of the common websites but I'm blocked if I try and enter it. However, if I look at images I can see the option to choose Safesearch setting - I can therefore access images etc that way.

I've also tried unblocking pornography on Safeguard - I can then access the websites, so Safeguard is clearing working to some degree. However, not nearly well enough if you have young children as I do

Joe

Re: Safeguard not enforcing google safe search

lahbrannan1 — Mon, 24 Mar 2025 16:04:41 GMT

Thank you for your recent message.

The plusnet safeguard can only block websites which is why it is blocking the common sites. It cannot block certain search paramaters on google or google images unless you added google too the blocked list. we would reccommend have the safesearch setting that you mentioned for google turned on to provide the safest possible browsing for your children"

Thanks

Lee

Re: Safeguard not enforcing google safe search

outcast — Mon, 24 Mar 2025 23:19:09 GMT

Assuming that Plusnet's SafeGuard is based on BT's Parental Controls.

From BT : I've got a problem with BT Parental Controls

I have BT Parental Controls turned on, but search engine results and images are inappropriate - why aren't these blocked?

BT Parental Controls doesn't inspect content returned from a site, it looks at the URL and the category it has been assigned to. Sites such as Google are defined as 'Search Engines' and are not blocked by BT Parental Controls.

As part of the Parental Controls service, we have automatically enabled Google and Bing SafeSearch.

However, other search engines may not have this feature to turn on by users.There are options to help with this:

Create a personalised filter level and block the 'Search Engines' category. You could then add one particular search engine to your allowed list

Turn on child safety features that may exist in your devices and for apps like YouTube, use apps that are designed specifically for kids like YouTube for Kids

Can one of the SuperUsers 'escalate' this topic to get a definitive answer from a technical authority within Plusnet

as to why Plusnet "SafeGuard" is no longer behaving in the same way that BT's "Parental Control" does for SafeSearch ?

@Townman ?