Protecting Android Phones and Tablets
Android devices are fully covered on your Guardian network, with a couple of settings worth knowing. Here's the short guide for Android households.
What the network covers
Every Android phone and tablet on your Guardian Wi-Fi gets the same filtering as everything else: category blocks in every app and browser, SafeSearch enforcement, bedtime schedules, and per-profile rules — nothing installed on the device, so nothing a child can uninstall. That matters on Android, where app-based parental controls are easy to sidestep and easy to remove.
What network filtering can't see
Cellular data leaves your network entirely, so a phone on 5G is outside the gateway. For on-the-go limits, Google's Family Link is the natural companion — it pairs well with the gateway's home-network rules.
Android-specific settings to check
- Randomized MAC: Android 10+ randomizes the hardware address per network by default. If the phone keeps reappearing as an unknown device, disable randomization for your Guardian network in its Wi-Fi settings — our randomized-MAC article walks through it.
- Private DNS: some Android builds let users set an encrypted DNS provider that bypasses the network's filtering. If you spot it set in the device's network settings, clear it — and note that a VPN attempt alert on the dashboard often traces back to exactly this.
- Hotspot toggling: a quick settings tile turns the phone into an unfiltered path for other devices; worth disabling for kids' phones.
Best practice
Assign the device to your child's profile the day it joins, and let the network do the day-to-day work.