Free · No sign-up · Takes about 30 seconds
ParentalControl.uk gives parents and guardians in the UK and Isle of Man clear, friendly guides to set up safety controls on their broadband, router, phones, consoles, smart TVs and DNS. Every guide is independent, free, and written in plain English. Every page tells you how to remove the controls again whenever you choose.
Initiative funded and led by Dr Alex J. Martin-Smith, CMgr · MBA · LLM · DBA. Contact Alex directly at ams@upleashed.com or 0330 122 1223 / 07624 218080.
Yes, honestly. The same checks that catch parental-control gaps also catch malware filtering, phishing protection, and whether your network is forcing SafeSearch. It's a one-button health check on your home network. Think of it as the Have I Been Pwned of household Wi-Fi.
Grandparents, foster carers, teachers, anyone helping a friend set up their home network, this is the 30-second answer to "is the basic protection switched on?".
Running your check
A few quick checks. Each one tells us something different about how protected your home is.
Your check
We run this from your browser, so we can only test what your browser can reach. We can tell you if a category is blocked or open from where you're sitting. We can't see inside your router. For a full picture, you may want to log into your router or your broadband provider's app and check the parental controls there.
This check tests what your browser can actually reach from your home network in real time. The results reflect what your network is doing right now from this device.
There are three honest limits to be aware of. First, browser-based checks cannot always tell the difference between a site being genuinely blocked and a filter page being served quickly, so a small number of false-positive 'reachable' results are possible. Second, we can detect the most common family-safe DNS configurations (Cloudflare for Families, OpenDNS FamilyShield, Quad9) but not every possible setup — custom DNS, Pi-hole, or some ISP-specific configurations may not register. Third, this check only measures your home Wi-Fi. It cannot see your child's mobile data connection, their phone when they are at a friend's house, or anything on a VPN.
If your score looks lower than you expected, re-run the check on a different device on the same Wi-Fi to corroborate. If you have just changed a setting, give the network 30 seconds to propagate before re-running.
Two more 30-second checks worth running on the same network. Built by the same team, with the same no-data-kept promise.
How it works
Most parents have no easy way to know what their home Wi-Fi is blocking. This page gives you that answer in plain English, in about half a minute, with one clear next step.
Most parents only find out a filter is off when they wish they had checked sooner.
Filter settings get reset when you swap router, change provider, or after a firmware update. Most UK homes have no quick way to test whether the protection they thought was on is still working today.
From your device. From your sofa. In real time.
The check opens in this browser tab and tries to load a test page from each category that matters. If your Wi-Fi blocks the page, we see the block. If your filter lets it through, we see the page open. The test stands in for the device your child would use, on the network they would use it on.
Run the check nowReal probes, not a simulation.
Adult content, malware, gambling, social media, AI tools and gaming each get a few seconds of live test requests. No software is installed on your device. No scan is saved on our server. No account is created.
Run the check nowMost parents are surprised. Many are relieved. All are glad they checked.
A score out of 100, a colour-coded dial per category, and a Fix First panel that names the single most useful action you can take next. Each fix is a direct link to your broadband provider's settings page, with the steps written in plain English.
Run the check nowBuilt in the UK as a public good for families.
We don't ask for your name. We don't keep your scan. We don't run adverts. We exist because no one was doing this for parents in plain English. Run it now, run it again next month, run it on a different device. It costs nothing every time.
Run the check nowAbout 30 seconds. No sign-up. Nothing to lose by checking.
Whatever you find out today, it's the start of fixing it. Most homes need one or two small adjustments. Some need none. Either way, knowing is better than guessing.
Start my free checkFree. Anonymous. Built in the UK. We don't keep your results.
We read your public IP on the server to name your ISP and tailor the guide. We do not store it.
We try to load a known adult-content test site (a safe, legitimate one). If your network blocks it, your filter is doing its job.
Same idea, but with a known malware test site. These are the ones you really want blocked.
We see which DNS provider you're using and whether it offers a child-safe option.
We check whether your browser can talk to secure DNS providers, in case you want to add an extra layer.
Most UK broadband providers include free parental controls as standard. They are off by default on many accounts and most parents have no clear way to check whether they're actually working.
This tool runs practical network checks and tells you what it found. No alarming language. No upselling.
If filters look off, you'll get a one-tap link to your provider's official page so you can switch them on quickly. No software to install. No fees. We don't earn anything if you click through.
A web browser cannot read your router's DNS settings directly. We can only make careful inferences from what your browser can see when it talks to known services.
Here's what we actually do, in plain English:
This is the most accurate browser-based check we can build in 2026. It's "experimental" because the underlying signals depend on services we don't own, and because some setups (Pi-hole, custom DNS, OS-level encrypted DNS) are invisible to any browser. For absolute certainty, see five manual checks you can run in two minutes.
