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A self-hosted proxy server designed for managing teenagers' phones

40 starsGo

Evan-proxy, better teenager phone management

by chrissnell·Mar 3, 2026·2 points·0 comments
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AI Analysis

●●●BangerSolve My ProblemShip It

Replaces expensive, sketchy child filters with self-hosted DNS-proxy alternative you control.

Strengths
  • •Per-child DNS + proxy avoids vendor lock-in and data privacy risks of commercial MDM.
  • •One-click kill switch solves the actual parental frustration mentioned in opening.
  • •Helm chart + Kubernetes-ready means real deployment infrastructure, not just a hobby script.
Weaknesses
  • •Requires MDM profile setup (SimpleMDM) and NextDNS coordination—multi-tool complexity for parents.
  • •iOS-only approach documented; no clear Android equivalent strategy mentioned.
Category
Productivity
Target Audience

Parents seeking open-source parental controls without trusting opaque third-party MDM services.

Similar To

PiHole · NextDNS · Cloudflare Families

Post Description

I tried all of the prominent child web filtering solutions and they were all terrible and expensive.

None of them made it easy to disable my teen's Internet. They were unreliable and made it hard to see usage logs. They depended on MDM profiles from an opaque company and you have to trust them to not abuse your child's data.

I wanted:

* One-click enable/disable Internet on a per-child basis

* Per-child traffic logs

* Per-child restrictions (enforced by per-child DNS blocking)

The solution was to build my own proxy and MDM profile. evan-proxy makes it easy to manage your teen's internet access. It will run easily from the smallest cloud server or your home network (when exposed publicly). It's inexpensive to run: you can use a PiHole for DNS or a low-cost service like NextDNS, and the only mandatory service is the MDM manager (I use SimpleMDM).

It's written in Go and includes a Helm chart for quick deployment.

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