Comments on: Parental Control Software Suggestions?

By: Alan Nielson

Alan Nielson — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 17:02:53 +0000

You can’t rely solely on software for protecting your kids (and computers) from harmful content from the internet. Computer use should be limited to an “open area” in the house and not in a private bedroom or office where unlimited internet use goes without some parental oversight. That being said, by far the best prevention I’ve found is the free service offered at http://www.opendns.com. The beauty of this service is that it redirects your internet traffic through Opendns’s “dns service”. As such, you don’t have to install any new software on your computer and it covers all computers accessing the internet through your home network. You can also customize the content to be filtered by “whitelisting” or “blacklisting” websites of your choice. You can even customize the screen that comes up when a website has been blocked. Again, no service is perfect but I am very happy with Opendns.

By: Darlene Woolverton

Darlene Woolverton — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 02:28:58 +0000

I am trying to uninstall the KOL parental control system and I cannot do it!!! It has taken over my whole computer. How can I get this monstrosity out of my aol?????

By: jon

jon — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 22:49:11 +0000

Here are a few suggestions

AllowBlock http://www.allowblock.com
WebAllow http://www.weballow.com
Website Block http://www.ashkon.com/webblock.html

By: Webwatcher

Webwatcher — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 12:57:57 +0000

I have heard a lot about K9 but have never used it. I have used several different products and so far, none have been efficient.

I found a good selection of parental control products at http://www.parental-control-software-top5.com

By: Jide

Jide — Sun, 14 Oct 2007 20:08:26 +0000

Try Crawler Parental Control. Its url is http://www.crawlerparental.com/

It has so many useful features, is very easy to set up & is freeware. You can also set specific times when you allow your kids access to the Internet. However, I still believe the best parental control is a computer located in the living room where nothing remain hidden for long.

By: Leo

Leo — Mon, 08 Oct 2007 14:14:15 +0000

I have just installed K9 Web Protection and Trend-Micro AV but when browse the windows auto-update site the IE 6.0 crashed. I un-installed K9 and everything okay. Anybody had this problem? What’s your solution?

Thanks,

Leo

By: Jamie Cainfield

Jamie Cainfield — Tue, 05 Jun 2007 15:58:28 +0000

We’ve been using a parental control software called PC Tattletale. http://www.pctattletale.com/. It’s been great for us so far. It does pretty much everything and it hides really well so my teenage son doesn’t know it’s there. We decided to buy it after doing their free 7 day trial.

By: Ken

Ken — Thu, 26 Apr 2007 05:26:58 +0000

I give my vote to K9 as well. I’ve been using it since last year and have been very pleased with it. I’ve even written a review about it on my blog which was visited by one of their VPs and who gave a few other bits info about the product.

If your budget is tight and you need some form of web safety, then I highly recommend using K9 Web Protection.

By: Arun

Arun — Fri, 20 Apr 2007 20:12:53 +0000

K9 Web protection is really powerful yet completely free. it is also not annoying. only blocks what you expect to be blocked, and not anything else.

By: Allison Stone

Allison Stone — Sun, 15 Apr 2007 01:39:52 +0000

Thank you for posting this, Chris. I’ve been away from my computer a few days and somehow missed my own question.

I appreciate the responses and am taking time to investigate all of the suggestions here. I should add that I was looking for some type of software, rather than suggestions about how to monitor. The *best* parental controls are obviously the open lines of communication, which we have. Our desktop computer is centrally-located and we have had numerous conversations about sharing information, etc. There’s really no issue with that. The main thing he likes to do is play games online, and occasionally he will run across something in his search for that isn’t entirely appropriate for a 7 year old. I would just like a little “backup” help for additional reassurance.

By: uSlacker

uSlacker — Sat, 14 Apr 2007 04:09:07 +0000

I use a linksys wrt54gs v2. It has built in parental control software which simply captures web, IM & mail traffic. It includes approved IM & e-mail contacts, restricted web sites, and time controls (time of day, not length). There is a small piece of s/w for windows, but it is not necessary. It is simply a login tool that the browser provides any way.

Been using it for 3 years. highly recommend

\\uSlacker

By: Diego

Diego — Tue, 10 Apr 2007 22:14:33 +0000

Best way is to put the computer in a visible shared room of the house. No hiding in the kid’s rooms with doors closed. Great parental control.

By: Chris

Chris — Tue, 10 Apr 2007 17:55:40 +0000

How about CyberPatrol? http://www.cyberpatrol.com/Home.aspx

By: sheryl4321

sheryl4321 — Tue, 10 Apr 2007 12:22:21 +0000

Safeeyes. http://www.safeeyes.com/
I don’t know if it will work the way you want but for my non techie runescape addicted son it has worked beautifully. ;-)

By: Ian Nock

Ian Nock — Tue, 10 Apr 2007 11:10:57 +0000

An interesting alternative is another PC setup with a little hack I saw in a book called Wireless hacks (http://isbn.nu/0596005598). The hack (using Linux if I remember right) with the right network setup, sucks all graphic files out of the network as they are requested and displays them on screen. Place this PC in a public area in the house and you have the ultimate control – embarrasment followed by grounding for infringement. You cannot block kids use of computers – just make it as visible as possible. Printing timestamps on the output of the screen would also make it hard to hide.

I believe in ‘you cannot block everything’ rule – just make it clear that nothing can be hidden.