Gertrude

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parental controlsMarch 6, 2025

Gertrude iOS Supervised Mode

Apple only allows internet content filtering on iOS devices owned by children under 18, or devices in Supervised Mode. This tutorial explains how to set up Supervised Mode in order to use the Gertrude iOS app on an iPhone or iPad.

parental controlsJanuary 29, 2025

Gertrude 2.7.0 Released

Today we are releasing version 2.7.0 of the Gertrude macOS app, which includes a new ability to block Mac apps, updates for changes in macOS Sequoia, safety improvements, and more.

parental controlsDecember 2, 2024

Gertrude 2.5.0 Released

Today we are releasing version 2.5.0 of the Gertrude macOS app, with some of your top requested features, including scheduled keychains and downtime.

parental controlsNovember 1, 2024

The Definitive Guide to Locking Down an iPhone (iOS 18)

A step-by-step guide to completely locking down an iPhone or iPad for iOS 18, for parents who are serious about protecting their kids from the dangers of unrestricted online activity.

parental controlsOctober 25, 2024

Gertrude iOS App 1.0 Released

The first version of Gertrude for iOS has been released, focused on fixing several glaring holes in Apple’s Screen Time parental controls - most importantly it is the only known way to block #images GIF search in Messages. Available today in the App store!

parental controlsOctober 24, 2024

SOLVED: How Parents Can Block #images GIF Search in iOS 18

A new, free iOS app called “Gertrude Blocker” gives parents what Apple has refused for over a year: the ability block inappropriate GIFs searchable by kids in the Messages texting app for both iOS 17 and iOS 18.

parental controlsOctober 2, 2024

iOS 18 & Screen Time: What Parents Should Know

Unfortunately, iOS18 seems to be another step backwards for parents. #images GIF search is still not preventable, and a new loophole with Spotlight searching has been found. We recommend sticking with iOS 16 or 17 until fixes or workarounds are ready.

parental controlsApril 8, 2024

How Much of the Internet is Porn? A Detective Story

In February of 2024, I randomly sampled an exhaustive list of over 167 million .com registrable domains using a custom-built Rust app which used a combination of manual hueristics and machine learning to test each for pornographic content. I was able to test a statistically significant sample size of 103,676 (0.1957%) reachable websites, and found 0.64% of them were porn.

parental controlsOctober 1, 2023

The Definitive Guide to Locking Down an iPhone (iOS 17)

A step-by-step guide to completely locking down an iPhone or iPad for iOS 18, for parents who are serious about protecting their kids from the dangers of unrestricted online activity.

parental controlsSeptember 19, 2023

In iOS 17 Parents Can't Delete `#images` GIF search iMessage App

Sadly, iOS 17 removes a vital parental control: the ability for parents to disable animated GIF searching through the #images iMessage app. This exposes children to thousands of extremely innappropriate images.

engineeringAugust 7, 2023

Generic React Components in TypeScript

Building a re-usable, typesafe radio or select component shows why we might need a generic React component. This tutorial explains how you can build your own well-typed and ergonomic generic components in typescript.

parental controlsJuly 1, 2023

Gertrude: The Best Mac Keylogger

Using Gertrude is the cornerstone of keeping your kids safe online, but it can't prevent every kind of problem. Take a few minutes to review this list of tips and common mistakes.

parental controlsJuly 1, 2023

Gertrude: The Best Mac Internet Filter

To keep your kids protected online, you need a high-quality mac internet filter that blocks the entire internet to keep them exactly and only where you want them to be.

parental controlsFebruary 9, 2023

Cinco Cosas que Olvidaste Bloquear en el iPhone de tu Hijo

Las cinco cosas que probablemente olvidaste al asegurar el iPhone de tu hijo... y los pasos extrañamente poco intuitivos que se necesitan para solucionarlas.

parental controlsFebruary 8, 2023

Five Things You Forgot When Locking Down your Kid's iPhone

The five things you probably forgot when locking down your kid's iPhone... and the bizarrely unintuitive steps it takes to fix them.

parental controlsJanuary 25, 2023

The Definitive Guide to Locking Down an iPhone (iOS 16)

A step-by-step guide to completely locking down an iPhone or iPad for iOS 18, for parents who are serious about protecting their kids from the dangers of unrestricted online activity.

parental controlsJanuary 25, 2023

Guía Definitiva para Bloquear un iPhone

Una guía paso a paso para bloquear completamente un iPhone o iPad, para padres que realmente desean proteger a sus hijos de los peligros de la actividad en línea sin restricciones.

engineeringApril 27, 2022

Swift Protocol Static Function Selection Quirk

I've been writing a lot of heavily generic Swift code lately, and figured out what seems (to me at least) to be a really useful quirk/edge-case having to do with how Swift selects between a protocol extension static method, and a static method implemented on a conforming type.

engineeringOctober 1, 2021

Setting up a Vapor + Postgres Github Action Test Workflow

Took me a bit of fiddling to figure out how to test my PostgreSQL+Vapor app on Github actions. Posting the basic workflow file for future googlers

engineeringApril 23, 2021

Querying Running Applications in MacOS

If you want to list out all of the currently running applications in a MacOS app, you can call `NSWorkspace.shared.runningApplications`, and filter down the ones you're interested in using the apps `.activationPolicy`.

engineeringApril 23, 2021

Request Accessibility Control for a MacOS App

If you need your app to have access to global events (like keystrokes) which require that the app is granted authorization to control your computer in the Security and Privacy pane of system extensions, you can prompt the user for this privilege with the below code

engineeringApril 19, 2021

Get user id from NEFilterFlow.sourceAppAuditToken

When building a Content Filter System extension for Mac OS, the instance of `NEFilterFlow` you receive in your `NEFilterDataProvider` class doesn't have much information (apart from the not-to-be-relied-upon `flow.description` string). Deriving useful data from these objects is tricky, and poorly documented.

engineeringApril 19, 2021

Authenticate an Admin User in a MacOS App

I needed to challenge for an admin user/password to protect an area of a MacOS app I'm developing. After much pain and sorrow navigating the incredibly lacking and confusing Apple documentation, I got the basic challenge working.