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I have router running Asus Merlin. I want to block a few websites. I have tried both URL Filter and Keyword Filter. But neither seem to work. I am beginning to doubt if this is how the feature works.

If I try to block a site, say "castles.cc", the description says

Key in the keywords for the sites that you want to block.

For example, enter "XXX" in the list The URL filter will block the http://www.abcXXX.com, http://www.XXXbbb.com and so on.

So I enter castles.cc and apply, but I can still access the website. It seems I was able to block the http request (can't access via Microsoft Edge) but seems browser automatically try https. Also all websites nowadays use https, so blocking http is useless. I also tried Keyword Filter with the same result.

Am I missing something here? How does URL / Keyword filtering work with Merlin? How can I block website of certain domains?

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Answering my own question. After some research, it seems the URL / Keyword Filtering in Asuswrt is indeed quite useless. It relies on inspecting the HTTP protocol for URL and Content. So not only it does not do anything with HTTPS, it can potentially slow down HTTP requests.

One other option is "DNS-based Filtering" under "LAN". First add the device into Router Mode DNS. Then I can add site I want to ban into /jffs/configs/dnsmasq.conf.add

address=/castles.cc/127.0.0.1

and run service restart_dnsmasq to update the local DNS. Unfortunately, this won't work if the device or browser has its own DNS.

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