Router Access Control Settings — wrong URL

Question

I am using a TP-Link Wireless N Router WR841N Model No. TL-WR841N and currently trying to restrict the access for one specific instagram page in 'Target Settings' in Access Control menu of my router.

The problem I am experiencing is that I cannot put www.instagram.com/nasa/ URL as a target URL, because the router yields an error saying that this is not a proper URL. Now, if I use www.instagram.com it works flawlessly. However, in this case I am no longer able to access any other instagram page.

Despite being new in this area, it looks like a proper URL to me (the one with / symbol in it).

Is there any way to add, for example add NASA's instagram page to this Access Control settings without blocking all other instagram pages?

I was trying to formulate this question in google, but I got redirected to some Angular discussion every time, so sorry if I might have asked an obvious (or even worse -- highly discussed before) question.

Answer 1

The router's interface is lying to you and you cannot really block specific URLs here.

Many routers use the term "URL blocking" even though what they really mean is domain blocking, and this apparently now includes TP-Link. (Older TP-Link firmwares used to call the same field "Domain Name", and the user guide PDF still talks about entering domain names in the "URL" field.)

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But in addition to that, the Instagram website uses HTTPS meaning the 'path' of all URLs is sent en­crypt­ed, so you couldn't block specific URLs anyway (not without implementing full SSL in­ter­cep­tion; and due to instagram.com being HSTS-preloaded, web browsers wouldn't let you do that either).

With HTTPS, the only thing your regular router even sees is the domain name (www.instagram.com), so it's going to be all-or-nothing decision.