Using the Shield page

At the top of the page, five tiles give you a quick read on protection without scrolling:

• Protection — whether Shield is active or currently paused.
• Active Rules — how many filtering rules are live right now.
• Filter Updates — when your filter lists last refreshed.
• SafeSearch — whether SafeSearch is on, and on how many engines.
• Apps Blocked — how many popular apps or services you've blocked.

Filtering is grouped into three categories — Adult content, Malware & phishing, and Ads & tracking. Each has a simple scale. Choose the level that suits your home; you can change it any time.

• Adult content and Malware & phishing offer all five levels (Off to Strict).
• Ads & tracking offers Off through Strong.

A sensible starting point for most homes is Standard across all three, raising Adult content to Strong or Strict if children use the network.

Lowering a level applies straight away. Raising a level can take a little while as the larger filter lists download and activate — this depends on your internet speed and the size of the lists.

Use these for the exceptions filtering doesn't get right. Enter one plain domain per line (for example example.com), then Save. Changes take a few seconds to apply.

• Whitelist — always allow these domains, even if a filter would normally block them. Use this if a site you trust is being caught.
• Blacklist — always block these domains, on top of the filter lists.

Temporarily turns Shield off for the whole network — handy when something won't load and you want to confirm whether filtering is the cause. While paused, Shield stops DNS filtering, network enforcement (the anti-bypass rules), and SafeSearch, allows Apple Private Relay, and permits all popular apps.

• Choose 5 min, 30 min, or 2 hours. Protection switches back on automatically when the timer ends.
• Resume turns protection back on immediately.

Changes can take 10–30 seconds to take full effect.

A read-only summary of which filter lists are currently active. There's nothing to set here — it's a confirmation of what your chosen levels have switched on.

Filter lists improve over time. This section controls how often Shield refreshes them.

• Update Now — refresh immediately.
• Weekly — the recommended setting for most homes.
• Daily — refresh every day if you prefer the newest lists.
• Off — stop automatic updates (not recommended).

SafeSearch asks search engines to hide explicit results. Turn it on with the master switch, then open Search Engines to choose which ones it applies to. Shield supports SafeSearch on seven engines: Google, YouTube, Bing, DuckDuckGo, Ecosia, Yandex and Pixabay.

Covering Ecosia, Yandex and Pixabay is broader than most parental-control products manage — worth enabling all seven for a child-safe setup.

Block specific apps and services by name — social media, streaming, games and more. Use the search box to find one quickly (for example Facebook, TikTok or Netflix), then switch it off for the whole network. This is the simplest way to keep a particular app off every device at once.