Our Android Service Has Been Overhauled
Over the last few months, we’ve kept you up to date on some major changes to our app on Android. First, we told you about how Google told us to stop using the Accessibility Feature, which at the time we were using to provide Accountability and Filtering. A few months after that, we invited you to help us test a fix. And a month ago, we told you we were testing a new way to provide app reporting and locking.
All this hard work has paid off, and we’re pleased to announce that our new app is fully tested and will be available to all within the next week. For some of you, it may already be available!
If you were one of our testers over the last several months, thank you! We couldn’t have done it without you.
Just to remind you, here’s how this updated app works:
- Accountability across all apps. Covenant Eyes uses VPN-like technology to dig deeper into your Android device. We monitor top level domains visited anywhere on your phone or tablet, list all of them in the Detailed Browsing Log, and shows the Highly Mature domains in your Accountability Report. For example, if someone visits “espn.com/football” anywhere on the phone, the top-level domain, “espn.com,” will be rated according to our age-based rating system.
- Forced safe search: We now force safe search in Google and Bing in all browser views (Chrome, Opera, Dolphin, etc.). This includes browsers that might be “embedded” in other apps, e.g., Facebook, Twitter, etc. This also includes a forced safe search in the Bing and Google Search Apps.
- Circumvention is difficult: Attempts to remove Covenant Eyes will cause a notification to be sent to the Accountability Report.
- Built in app locking. Don’t want to access certain apps at all? Use our app lock to prevent access. You can even lock down the Google Play store!
- App reporting. We list the apps that were used in a separate section of the Report, so you can see any potentially questionable apps.
- YouTube Restricted Mode: If you’re a Filter user, you have the option of enabling YouTube Restricted Mode across the entire device. This can be done by the Filter Guardian in My Account, as explained in our support article. This is significant for parents who are constantly fighting against YouTube’s lack of strong mobile controls.
- Less battery usage: Using accessibility caused significant processing drain on Android devices. Our rebuilt app solves this issue.
IMPORTANT NOTICE FOR FILTER USERS: Our Filter is not currently available for web activity on Android.
For our Android users, thank you for your patience and trust as we worked through some recent service difficulties. We are excited about these recent updates and we hope you are, too. As always, if you have questions or concerns, please leave a comment below or contact us.
We’ve tried removing the “key” notification on my husband’s galaxy due to the vpn running, to no avail. Are you guys are of a workaround? We just want to clear the notification, not stop the vpn. We’ve tried accessing notification settings, turning off CE notifications and VPN system notifications
Hello – yes, we are aware of that and are locked into it due to the Android OS, which wants to always be telling its users that a VPN is in use (even though we aren’t a traditional VPN). We’re definitely looking into whether there’s anything we can do about that.
Chris
(Aware of)
There is a constant notification on the lock screen of my phone which does not go away. Is there a way of removing that? It blocks the weather and my step count.
Hello, Drew – yes, we are aware of that and are locked into it due to the Android OS, which wants to always be telling its users that a VPN is in use (even though we aren’t a traditional VPN). We’re definitely looking into whether there’s anything we can do about that.
Chris
My Samsung galaxy 7 Active Android 8.0.0 autoupdated this morning and there is not any internet browser access across any app. I was able to place a call over Wifi on facebook messenger. Please advise. Thank you.
Is there a way to turn off YouTube restricted mode for filtered users. It’s overly restictive.
Hi, Tom – there is a fix for this in the works. Thank you for your patience.
Chris
Is this article saying the one thing that I seek to have, that no doubt all users seek to have, which is filtering/blocking, that currently Covenant Eyes cannot do this???
Bc if so, then I’d like a refund as this is a waste of money. What good is a blocking/filtering app that neither blocks nor filters???
Hi, Tim – we provide filtering on numerous platforms, but are not able to for Android right now.
Chris
Is there a way to get rid of the Covenant eyes notification? I’d rather not have that reminder up at all times.
Hello – yes, we are aware of that and are locked into it due to the Android OS, which wants to always be telling its users that a VPN is in use (even though we aren’t a traditional VPN). We’re definitely looking into whether there’s anything we can do about that.
Chris
Hi, my phone recently autoupdated and now with the new VPN I can’t load any internet based content whilst it is active. I have to disconnect to get any web pages or apps to load. Is there a solution to this?
Hi, have you tried shutting the phone off and restarting it?
Even though there is currently no filtering for android, are there any plans for adding filtering in the future, or is there any efforts to work on a solution to add filtering?