I continue with my suite of mobile apps for parents:
* https://screenspy.app - observe what youd child is doing on desktop PC. Roblox or homework?
* https://weblock.online - a VERY restricted, whitelist-first mobile browser for kids, use it instead of Safari. I want to feel calm when my children browse the web.
I work on my iOS app - Weblock Browser, a restricted browser for kids with strong parental controls: https://weblock.online
Recently I've added AI classification of websites to determine if a website is safe for a child to visit. If AI disallows a website, you can ask your parent to allow it.
To give AI some context about a website, I used Cloudflare Intel API - it returns domain content categories, very handy to provide them to AI to help it make a decision.
But turns out Cloudflare Intel has a ridiculous limit of 100 requests PER MONTH for non-Enterprise users.
Didn't get to this detail yet. What the app currently does is allow all resources but block the ones that come from any youtube domain (this will block youtube embeds). Currently this is enough for my kids.
Also I add some relaxing rules, eg: If you navigate to domain A and it redirects you to domain B, do not block B immediately, give it a couple of seconds. It may redirect you back to A and it just wanted to set a cookie on B.
I am adding some gift codes for those who want to check the app but not bother with trial/subscription:
Weblock uses a whitelist, not a blacklist, and it is domain based. Once you allow a domain, it can be browsed by a child. You can allow it forever/15 minutes/1 hour.
How it works: WKWebView, before loading a page, asks the backend if the domain is allowed. If not, it shows "Not allowed" screen and a "Request access" button - child can tap it and you (parent) will get a notification.
So traffic is not going through the backend or a filtering VPN, the app just asks the backend if a page (domain) is allowed to visit.
Visits are logged, so you, as a parent, can see what your child has been browsing. How much time did he spend on a homework website.
Some WKWebView callbacks used for that:
* onShouldStartLoadWithRequest - to intercept a request and check if it's allowed
* onLoadProgress - to show loading progress bar
* onNavigationStateChange - to track browsing history
Also I had to implement a workaround for buggy Screen Time in iOS 26 - even if you add Weblock to "always allowed" apps, iOS will still treat each website as a separate "app" and block it, asking to you "allow' each website on system level. It happens inside WebKit codebase, but luckily this bug has another bug in it - if you re-open a website, it suddenly works and all other websites in this session work tooSo I need to listen to `onScreenTimeBlockingStateChange` event and automatically reload a website if that happens.
Also I added an ad blocker to Weblock. It uses uBlock Origin filters, converts them to WKWebView content rule JSON format and feeds to WKWebView. The app checks the backend if rules are updated and updates a local copy.
What's next: need to get "Default Browser" entitlement from Apple. Then you can block Safari on kid's phone using Screen Time and have Weblock open all HTTP(S) URLs.
App is written in React Native, no performance issues. Backend is Ruby on Rails.
Just launched a restricted browser for kids for iOS: https://weblock.online
Now testing on my kids. The idea is that the browser is whitelist-only, so kids can open only approved websites. I receive a notification when they want to visit an unknown website and I can allow or deny it.
Works great for my family, hope it will be useful for someone else.
* https://screenspy.app - observe what youd child is doing on desktop PC. Roblox or homework?
* https://weblock.online - a VERY restricted, whitelist-first mobile browser for kids, use it instead of Safari. I want to feel calm when my children browse the web.