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KarenT

Internet Protection with parental controls

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Which products do you use to protect your children online? I've been using one of 'the' brands for a few years now but this year's version hasn't got individual user accounts, which means I can only have parental controls set to 'on' or 'off' with the same settings for all users. I don't want to restrict access for the adults in the family but obviously don't want an 8 year old to see stuff he shouldn't.

 

They all claim to have excellent parental controls but I don't want to risk buying one of the others to find that they're all the same.

 

Karen

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Hi Karen -

 

Don't know much about this yet (ben only goes online when i'm about at the mo - but I'm guessing this'll be a big concern for me in a few years time too), so no direct advice, but indirectly i always look for either freeware or trial versions of stuff before i part with my money...

Had a quick look at C-Net, and they have quite a few free options... they have their limitations, but it MAY be those limitations are no better/worse than the ones in the commercial programme you have??

If you go to the top of the list, you can change the search criteria to 'All licenses' which will show commercial applications too. Chances are you'll get 'try before you buy' versions of anything you could buy in the shops which you can check for features/benefits/efficency before parting with your cash...

C-Net is generally a very 'safe' download site (along with tucows etc), so as long as you stick to stuff with good editor star ratings/reviews you should be fine... Two free possibilities look like 'Kidz Protection' & 'Parental Control Bar' on the page I've linked to...

 

Hope this helps:

 

cnet security

 

L&P

BD :D

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Thanks for that Badders. Will have a look on there when J goes back to school next week and I get a bit of breathing space!

 

Karen

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The companies that make internet protection software are just rip-off merchants that sell third rate products that don't really work. There are just too many "nasty" websites out there and many aren't covered by even the latest software. Also, the definition of what is and isn't nasty depends on the parent's attitudes which may differ to the attitudes of the people who write the software.

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Canopus

 

I do not agree with you. The dangers out there are real and a genuine concern to parents. Good quality filtering software is an important part of a safe and sensible approach to allowing children access to the internet. I don't feel unsubstantiated sweeping generalisations are very helpful.

 

I have recently installed NetNanny 5.5 at home, but have alos stumbled across this free software whioch seems well worth a look.

 

 

http://www.k9webprotection.com/

 

 

Simon

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I appreciate this is a serious concern for you, and lots of other parents / schools / institutions where kids use computers. However, my experience with filtering software is very chequered. Even the best and latest software often lets through plenty of very nasty websites and often fails to exclude mirror websites of organisations likely to be blocked. My findings are that installing filtering software often lulls parents into a false sense of security because they assume it completely blocks out all the nasty websites, when in reality it just reduces the number of nasty websites accessible. This is something parents should be aware of. At the same time, most filtering software regularly blocks quite innocent and decent websites for no logical reason.

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I've tried to use 2 softwares downloaded from the web and in both cases they caused my computer to crash and I had to uninstall them. :(

 

C.

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