How do I stop the "attempted to access these secure websites" popup with parental controls enabled?

This has been an issue for a very long time. I've never seen any truly usable resolution to this issue yet. The suggestions to just hit "OK" and dismiss the dialog are no good - the dialog takes application focus away from whatever app you were using; clicking OK then puts you in "limbo" where your keystrokes don't register anywhere. You have to use the mouse to click back to whatever app you are using EVERY SINGLE TIME.

Adding to whitelist by having an admin log in seems like a good solution, but Apple itself has so many crazy esoteric addresses that it hits, I have no idea what app is generating them. Apps like syncdefaultsd, com.apple, RemoteURLConnectionAgent and others pummel the user with individual IP addresses that vary only in the last digit. So you could literally whitelist 500 IPs in a range and still not hit them all. And that's assuming whitelisting works, which it doesn't seem to do reliably.

Sometimes restarting will stop the avalanche of popups; Using Messages also seems to make the problem worse. There is only one suggestion that I've seen that I've yet to try since it's pretty involved, but I've heard success with: A complete reinstall of the system software. This issue seems to be worse with accounts that have been upgraded from previous versions of the OS. From what I've seen suggested, resetting the computer back to factory, upgrading the OS and then creating the managed accounts may be a way to resolve this problem. I currently don't have time to deal with that and the inevitable headaches that I'm sure will result, but one of these days I'm going to have to try it.

You need to report it to Apple Feedback so it can be logged and put in the queue to be fixed.

http://www.apple.com/feedback/macosx.html

I have always had exactly the same problem. The design of these "so-called" parental controls is so inane as to suggest that Apple clearly does not want to provide parental controls. Restricting children access to the candy available in the Apple ecosystem is contrary to their business model. The meaningless gesture that these "parental controls" offer is clearly a ruse so that Apple can claim that such controls exist in their marketing material and thus reassure parents.

What's more, despite extensive investigation, I have noticed an amazing lack of tools/apps that work effectively to limit access to websites and apps or to limit time on apple devices/computers (and please don't suggest Net Nanny - it is a disaster that will consume your machine). Such apps are conceptually very simple. The demand for such controls is colossal. I don't know a single parent who doesn't scream that useful tools don't exist. Why would this be? Hmmm....Apparently OS X operating systems are very hostile to this sort of intervention and are designed to be so.

Apple should beware of this stance lest its clients start voting with their feet to get their children onto more open platforms. A new generation, teething on non-Apple products. How does that fit into Apple's grand marketing plan? Smarten up Apple! Your hegemony won't last forever unless you respond to massive demand issues like parental control.

In System Preferences create a User for your Children. Put Parental control on this User and remove from your user.

They can log out/in to use their User or use fast user switching so you don't have to quit applications in your User.

Do you have "Allow access to only these websites" checked? You might see if "Try to limit access to adult websites autmatically". AFAIK you can't stop a dialog from launching.

See the article for suggestions:

http://www.macworld.com/article/2030156/configuring-parental-controls.html

>>It would not make sense to keep asking a non admin account

Indeed, & yet that's what happens.

There are web browser apps which appear to sort of work as requested, but they seem to be either paid-for or restricted to their own sponsored content intended to get a subscription from the user.

andyBall_uk wrote:

>>It would not make sense to keep asking a non admin account

Indeed, & yet that's what happens.

There are web browser apps which appear to sort of work as requested, but they seem to be either paid-for or restricted to their own sponsored content intended to get a subscription from the user.

So we can close this thread with "yep Mavericks/Safari parental controls are flawed, live with it "

It's been like that as long as Parental Controls have been available, so far as I recall; certainly since 10.5. I suppose it works for some situations, but an option to make unavailable links do nothing, would be helpful, I agree.

I Personally have had the same problem, with no solution. What I'd like to see is another option on the popup called: "never show this again".

Also, within the child's system preferences, there should be an option to turn the popup back on, in case there are any problems so that you can troubleshoot.

One thing I'd like to note for anyone here: when you click "add website" a prompt comes asking for an admin name and password.

My solution, though not very convenient, is to click. "Add website" when the popup appears, then move both the original as well as the password prompt to the bottom-left of the screen. If you do it right, then you should only have a one pixel-wide grey line at the bottom-left of the screen*. Doing this gets it out of the way and also prevents any future popups of the same kind. until Apple fixes this issue, I guess you'll have to teach your daughter to do that whenever she sees the popup. Hope that helps!

*The window will only go all the way off the screen if its only adding one website: ie "Add website", not: "Add selected websites"

hi

It may not have been what you asked, but it was a logical answer to resolve the issue as it was designed to be solved.

As you can't know OR control what web sites call up, don't expect that your (singular) methods will be effective.

'Dave

This is still an issue in the latest and "greatest" macOS 10.13.1.

My son got our machine infected so after rebuilding the machine I've tried to lock down his profile using Parental Controls.

Parental Controls > Apps > Limit Applications on this Mac > Allowed Apps

Firstly white listing Apps just doesn't work. I raised this as a defect with Apple and the responding by closing mine as a duplicate defect. Whether this means they will fix it at some point I don't know.

RESULT: Turn off Parental Controls for Apps

Parental Controls > Web > Allow access to only these sites

Secondly white listing Websites basically renders the profile unusable. For example, try whitelisting YouTube and then attempting to view a video. As the page tries to load the focus-stealing prompt will appear dozens of times with all manner of IP addresses and web addresses asking for access. I know that websites contain content from multiple sources and so do Apple so why can't they make this process more manageable.

RESULT: Turn off Parental Controls for Web

These issues basically render these important Parental Controls useless and I'm left with a machine that's vulnerable to infection again (yes I realise I could use OpenDNS or my router to filter traffic, but I want to use the built-in features on my OS to manage just one user profile).

This original post was created in 2014. Another reply mentioned seeing the same problems in OSX 10.5. Clearly these issues have been ever present.

When will Apple address this?