Completely Block Any Kind of Porn on iPad/iPhone in 3 Simple Steps

Whether you are a recovering porn addict or a parent who wants to keep their child safe on the internet; in both cases blocking porn on your iPad/iPhone does make sense. And thankfully, blocking porn (or any sought of adult content) is much easier on iOS compared to than Android.

But before we get started, it’s important to understand the roots of the problem, i.e. where people watches porn on iPad/iPhone.

And in my experience, there are 3 major places where people go for (or in the case of kids accidentally discover) adult content.

1. YouTube (yes, YouTube does have tons of inappropriate content)
2. Directly visiting the porn website from browser
3. 3rd party apps like 4chan, Reddit, or even Facebook videos

And if we have to effectively block adult content on iOS devices, we need to put a filter in all these 3 places.

So, let’s see how to do that.

Step 1: Block Adult Content on YouTube app

YouTube has this feature called restricted mode which when enabled will automatically start hiding all the videos that ‘may’ contain inappropriate content. And how do YouTube decided which video is inappropriate?

And how do YouTube decided which video is inappropriate?

Well, say if somebody has to upload a breastfeeding video (for educational purposes) on YouTube, then according to YouTube terms and conditions they will have to enable age restriction on that video. Other ways to detect inappropriate content is by manually reviewing the flagged videos by users and other signals. And as you can see this model is far from perfect. But, if you have kids at your home, it’s important to turn it ON and this is best you get, at least for now.

So, here how to do it.

Turn on the Restricted Mode on an iPhone

Open the YouTube app on your iPhone or iPad > tap on the three vertical dots on the upper right-hand corner > Next tap on Settings > Restricted Mode Filtering > Strict.

Limitation

One big problem with the restricted mode is, just like you turned it ON, you can also turn it OFF by a simple press of the button. There is no Pin or password protection, to make sure kids don’t disable them knowing or unknowingly.

One way to fix this problem you can use YouTube kids app, it’s designed especially for kids. Or you can log out of your Google account in the YouTube app. This way, kids won’t be able to watch age restricted videos.

Related: How to block Adult Videos on YouTube App

Step 2. Block Adult content on iOS using Parental control (Recommended)

Unlike Android, Apple has an inbuilt option to block (or limit) specific apps and features on your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch. And it’s pretty good too. Once enabled, if you search for terms like – naked, sex or any other bad word on any web browser installed on your device, there are no results. In my limited testing, it also blocked every adult sites I tried.

Here, Apple has a detail list of Apps and features you can restrict using the native Parental control app. You can also create a profile for your children by going to Settings > General > Profiles. And turn ON restriction for that specific profile. Parental control is also available for MacOS.

Now, let’s see how to use to block inappropriate websites on iPad.

1. On your iOS device go to Settings > General > Restrictions.

2. Once you are in the Restriction menu, tap on Enable Restrictions and set a new passcode. It’s better to keep this passcode different for your lock screen password. This passcode will be needed when you will make big changes, like installing apps, making changes related to parental control on iOS etc.

3. Next, go to Allowed content > Websites > Limit adult websites.

Now if you type any adult website or keyword on any browser, the site will not load. This works surprising well.

Step 3: Use Open DNS

In simple words, DNS server sits between you and the website you want to open. So, every internet request you make first goes from your device to the DNS server and then to the actual website.

By default, we use the ISP’s DNS server, but there are many other DNS providers, like Google, Norton, SafeDNS, OpenDNS etc.

Since OpenDNS offer the best parental controls, let’s use their DNS server.

Make sure you are connected to the WiFi network, where you want to use OpenDNS nameserver.

1. Go to Settings >  WiFi. On the WiFi that is connected, tap on the blue circle.

2. Next, tap on the DHCP > DNS option and use your keyboard to delete all the previous IP address. Once cleared add new DNS server

208.67.222.222,

208.67.220.220

4. Once done, tap on Wi-Fi icon to back and save changes.

To check if you have successfully configured open DNS on your device, just go to OpenDNS welcome page. If you see the confirmation message, it’s working.

If you want to use open DNS on every device connected to your home, put these to DNS server in the router.

Wrapping UP

Even if you block adult content of your iPad from the web browser and YouTube app, there might still be other apps (like Reddit, 4chan, Imgur, Facebook video or entire app app store) where users might find inappropriate content.

So, make sure you create a separate profile for your kids and then add parental control to it. And from there, you can restrict all the apps, except the one like YouTube and web browser.

For better security, you can block all the apps that connect to the internet and install Mobicip Safe Browser

These tips will help toddler not discover adult content accidentally. If you want to overcome your porn addiction, check out Reddit NoFap. This community will help you stay motivated and away from the porn website.