this post was submitted on 01 Apr 2026
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I'm in the process of getting my kids their first PC this Christmas. They'll both get a mini-PC, with severely restricted Internet access. I'm actually thinking about just letting them connect to the home server where I'd mock the Web sites I pick for them. For this reason, Win11 with its online account requirement is automatically excluded from consideration. I wated to give them Mint anyway, but this was the argument that convinced my wife.
You should keep an eye on Gnome. Their recent release, Gnome 50, just introduced parental controls to limit access to programs and they're looking to implement website access as well.
I don't like Gnome, but my kid's first PC will have Gnome on it now because of these new features, which I greatly appreciate
I think you should let the kid just use variety of systems and desktops over time. It's fine if it likes something different than you in the end as well, and there's a chance that they will like GNOME more if they are more used to mobile UI's.
Mocking up whole websites seems like a pain. With a Pihole, you can create different service groups for computers and apply a whitelist to just their machines. Plus you get adblocking too!
Lol I assumed OP meant mock as in "You want to go to tiktok? What a horrible site. You have bad taste."
You should do that as well, to protect the kids from those brain rot slop websites
Yeah, could also have two Pi-Hole instances. One is network wide and block ads for everyone, and the other is the DNS the kids PCs use, set with a white list of approved sites only. You can set Pi-hole to block everything (set * as the a RegEx filter) and then add domains to the white list to be allowed through.
Groups is probably more efficient but two instances could be offer more options/nuance on how you run things.
I tried pi-hole, but it turned in a real pain, trying to set it up for normal use, plus two WFH offices. I may give it another try, when I feel more patient.
The idea of mocking websites came from talking to other parents from my kids' school. I was thinking about some form of a local "internet" for our neighbourhood for all the kids. Heavily curated, a mix of mock sites (like the full download of Wikipedia), news through RSS, moderated message boards, etc. I don't think it's an original idea given the current state of the Internet, so at this stage I'm just reading up on design best practices.
In the past, I've used Adguard Home, and I liked it. When I tried to my Adguard server as the DNS for my router, though, my WFH corporate VPN wouldn't connect, so there's that. Granted, I was using it to remove ads, but people seem to like it for parental controls too.
Whoa. Parents…. Parenting??
In all seriousness, if more parents were proactive like you, we wouldn’t have all this under 16 social media ban and shit.
I saw a deal for a pair of mini PCs with decent specs on eBay right after I got my annual bonus, so I jumped on it because I want to do the same thing for my kids. May be jumping the gun a bit...my son just learned the alphabet (uppercase only) and my daughter just learned how to flop off the couch head-first.
It's a hell of a moment when they can out perform their parents, isn't it?
My wife taught my son English uppercase letters, so I've been teaching him Greek lowercases. I can't help but feel proud every time he says "pi"
...but who taught her to flop off the couch? That sounds like an aunt or uncle.
She independently discovered it haha. I sit her down on the couch next to me while I'm working, and she constantly flops over. It drives me nuts! I would let her just do her thing, but she's got pretty bad reflux and even just a minute or two of tummy time within like 2 hours of having a bottle will make her ralph.
The other day, I had to get up for a minute or two, and I left her on the couch. My better judgment kicked in and I pushed an ottoman next to the couch to block the space she usually tries to launch into. This is what I came back to see:
My kids are a little older - just learned to read without sounding off the words - so I need to introduce parental controls. But you may see your purchase as an investment: a year from now, the hardware may be worth twice as much.
That's the main reason I jumped on them. I've seen an increasing trend of people selling old computers with the RAM and HDDs taken out
Just put 3.1 on those and let them play solitaire to their hearts content.
If they get Windows 95, they can also play Hearts to their Solitaire's content.
Windows 95 with the Microsoft Entertainment Pack
I have a working emachines desktop with Win98. They'll pry it off my cold, dead hands...
My kids’ devices are blocked from internet access in my OpenWRT firewall and I run a Squid proxy on my server with an allowlist of domains they can access.
I still have an unused, boxed WRT-54G. Granted, it's only 802.11b/g, but good enough for casual browsing, and I have experience setting up OpenWRT there. Thanks for helping me remember; I'll use that for the kids.
Smart move, with the brain rot cancer that internet has become these days, it's best to keep your kids away from it until their brains finish developing a bit