Parental Controls for the PC:

How to keep children safe on the internet.

Monitor PC and Internet use for Children

• On this page:
• About keeping children safe on the web with Parental Control Software –

– Including:
NetIntelligence Parental Control, which you can download and install on three computers.
CyberPatrol, trusted software for internet filtering
Webroot Parental Controls Software, formerly known as Child Safe. This also can be deployed onto three computers.

• Children with free internet access will be exposed to violent and pornographic websites and images.
• Children don't always understand the importance of privacy: e.g. in chat rooms children often give their home addresses and phone numbers to strangers.
• Children post personal details and photographs on social websites like Myspace and Facebook. It is well known that sexual predators love social sites like these.
• Children don't always understand about phishing and scams. (Even adults are fooled by these.)
• Children can be bothered by online stalkers and online bullies on social websites.

(By the way: If you have trouble of that sort – i.e. online stalkers or bullies – advice and information can be found here, bullyonline.org.)

What do children do on the web?

You might be a parent of children who use the web, and perhaps you don't really understand what goes on at some of the social web sites.

For example the ins and outs of: Instant Messaging, Chat Rooms, MySpace, Xanga, Facebook, YouTube – might not be clear to you.

See our page with more information about this: Keeping Children Safe on the Web

How to protect children on the web.

Obviously you can keep children safe online if you personally supervise them every minute they are using any computer. But for most parents this is not practical.

Fortunately, we can also apply safety measures to protect children from internet 'bad neighbourhoods'.

When children are on the web we want to give them the same protection we give them in the real world. I.e. we want to know:

• Where they are going
• When they are going there
• What they are doing there

You can do this by using software to:

• Block and filter the web keeping objectionable websites away from children
• Monitor, control and record what children are doing on the computer

Monitor computer use

Here we are talking about software that allows a parent to monitor the internet activities, web surfing and software use of children (or other adults) on connected computers.

Block and restrict computer and internet access

• You can filter and block objectionable websites (as described above)
• You can allow or restrict access to software on a computer
• You can allow or restrict access to the computer at specified times, e.g. no computer use at homework time

Monitor and get reports

The parental control software we describe below has options like these:

• You can get a report showing what websites children have been visiting
• You can see a report about what software children have been using
• You can see a record of everything that children read and write in internet messaging or chat sessions
• You can read all the emails that children send
• You can get all the passwords that children use (!)

As you can see, there is a spectrum and escalation here – starting with 'I should be concerned about my children' and heading towards 'my children should have no privacy whatever'.

Parental Control Software

Some of the better known names in this kind of software include NetNanny, Cyber Patrol, SafeEyes and CYBERsitter.

Choosing monitoring software

A main quality issue with tools or services to block or filter websites is that they either block too many websites or let some bad ones into your browsers.

You have to decide for yourself which is worse:

• It can be annoying to find that you can't get to a perfectly acceptable site that you need to visit.
• On the other hand it can also be alarming to find that something offensive sneaked past your child-safety filter.

Another quality issue: is the parental control software itself well hidden or able to defend itself. Computer-savvy children can work out how to disable or 'sneak past' parental control programs that are not very secure.

My research suggests that:

• These filters, whether free or commercial, are much better than they used to be at 'getting it right'.
• Since new websites are being made every minute these filters will never be perfect.

With most internet filters you can allow or ban websites on a one-by-one basis. So, if your main concern is to protect children from objectionable sites, you can start with aggressive blocking, then make allowances for any sites that get unnecessarily blocked.

Apart from that, it's just a question of whether a monitoring tool has the features you want. For example, you can consider:

• How many computers or users do you want to monitor?
• How much control and access do you want. E.g. do you actually want to be able to read all your child's email?

How many computers?

These days lot of families have at least two or three computers in the household. (We have six: three in my office and three more spread out in the lounge, children's rooms etc. When I was growing up nobody told me that a big part of a father's job was to be the home network administrator. And I didn't get any lessons about it at school.)

So some parental control software is now offered on a multi-user basis. I.e. you can use it on about three computers at the standard price.

Here are some parental control programs.

NetIntelligence Parental Control

Netintelligence is more than just filtering and blocking software. It also provides features to control and get reports about computer activity, e.g. what software was running and when, what web pages were visited.

Main Features:

• You can deploy it on three computers
• It is web-based and easy to use
• It is relatively polite – it aims at protection, rather than total invasion of privacy (and password collecting)

Also it seems to me that, once installed, NetIntelligence is well concealed – so children will not be able to disable it.

Netintelligence is interesting to me because the company is not the usual "computer security for consumers" kind of company. Netintelligence is a company that specialises in deploying software over networks.

Given that they mainly think about how to deliver sophisticated software to large networks, I expect it was easy for them to make very easy-to-use parental control software.

Click on any of the NetIntelligence links to download.

NetIntelligence can be deployed on three machines: then you can control all three from one computer. (So you don't have to run all around the house just to adjust settings on each computer.)

Settings are adjusted on a per-user basis, so you can easily choose different safety settings for different age groups.

Easy to install and use

I can vouch that NetIntelligence is easy to install and set up. (I checked on this by trying it, because when I first saw the Netintelligence site I never heard the name before or seen any software reviews.) Obviously, this kind of software is only useful if it's easy for parents to install and use.

The user interface is a webpage that you open in your browser.
So to use NetIntelligence you don't need to do much more than open your browser and click buttons to choose your settings.

It has an anti-virus module also. Personally, I would rather rely on the heavy-duty anti-virus specialists like the ones on our anti-virus page. Fortunately, the anti-virus module is optional in NetIntelligence so we have a choice here.
But if you are not running any anti-virus tool already, and you use NetIntelligence, you should install the anti-virus option: any anti-virus tool is better than none.

CyberPatrol

CyberPatrol lets you monitor and control your child's online activities and protects them from harmful content, including spyware and phishing sites. It lets you block or filter chat and instant messaging programs as well as safeguard against abusive language in chat sessions.

CyberPatrol installs on only one computer so it does not have the remote monitoring function of NetIntelligence. However it does give parents a lot of control over any PC with CyberPatrol installed.

You can monitor and control your child's online activities and protect them from harmful content, including spyware and phishing sites. You can block or filter chat and instant messaging programs as well as safeguard against abusive language in chat sessions.

You can choose to manage the time they spend online and help prevent them from divulging their personal information.
CyberPatrol lets you choose where, when, and how your child surfs online - even when you can't be there.

Click to buy and download CyberPatrol or visit the Cyber Patrol web site.

Or check here for a very full description of all the features in CyberPatrol.

How it works
CyberPatrol internet safety software is specifically designed to work on standalone Microsoft Windows based PCs at either the desktop or laptop level. It lets you monitor and control your users' internet access as well as limit or prevent their access to programs, such as games or other programs located on your PC.

Who's using it?
Parents, schools, libraries, and businesses worldwide have come to rely upon and trust CyberPatrol as the most effective tool to help protect their users online. Recommended regularly by parent and computer magazines, it's regarded as easy to use yet technically sophisticated and fully customizable according to their age, needs and interests. CyberPatrol is recognized as the most user-friendly internet safety software in the market today.

What you can expect
Whether you are an inexperienced user seeking an out-of-the-box solution with factory-set filtering, or a power user looking to customize the Internet access of each user, CyberPatrol's powerful parental internet safety software caters for you. It gives you the choice to manage when, where, how and to whom access is allowed, filtered or blocked, as well as:

• Monitor internet activity
• Block harmful sites and images
• Restrict chat and instant messaging
• Limit time online and access to programs
• Control program downloads
• Protect privacy

CyberPatrol's internet safety software offers you flexible options to manage the level of Internet access that's appropriate for your users.

NEW Functionality	IMPROVED Filtering	ENHANCED Features
Instant Override User Profile Wizards Preset Filter Strengths Customized Ready-to-go Filtering	Web Filter Strengths Web Link Analysis Yes List Criminal Activity & Phishing Category	Monitoring and Logging Blocking Page Styles Windows User Name Integration Compatibility

Click to buy and download CyberPatrol or visit the Cyber Patrol web site.

Monitor Internet Activity

• Monitor Internet activity for a quick and accurate picture of surfing habits.
• Reports clearly show sites visited, time of day and duration.
• Real-time Activity Monitor for fine-tuning and troubleshooting settings.

Block Harmful Sites & Images

• Manage Internet access for any number of users on a PC.
• Block access unsuitable websites, newsgroups and search engine images
• Create a 'walled garden' of sites for very young kids.
• Discreet filtering with Stealth filtering mode.
• Ready-to-go filtering or customize settings for each user.

Restrict Chat & Instant Messaging

• Block access to chat and instant messaging programs
• Filter content of any chat sessions

Limit Time Online and Access to Programs

• Limit amount of time spent online
• Restrict access to locally held programs and/or online games
• Limit time spent on any chat program

Control Program Downloads

• Block indiscriminate program downloads and secure PC.
• Prevent illegal or copyrighted material being downloaded.
• Stop file transfers to protect from threat of Spyware and viruses in files.

Protect Privacy

• Help stop private information being revealed like names, addresses, phone numbers, etc.
• Protect from online predators and identity thieves.

Click to buy and download CyberPatrol or visit the Cyber Patrol web site.

Webroot Parental Controls

Webroot specialises in security software. They are particularly famous for their anti-spyware software.
In 2007 they upgraded and re-named their 'Child Safe' software for keeping children safe on the web.

Main Features

Save $10 on Webroot® Parental Controls. Click here.

(At present these links to Webroot take you to the Webroot main site: there you can click on the 'Home & Home Office' tab or the 'All Products' link to find Webroot Parental Controls.)

More features

• You can automatically log out children at specific times, e.g. after bed-time
• You can set "total-time-allowedt" limits for children: e.g. only three hours total computer time per day
• All the settings can be different for each user
• There is no limit on how many users you can have
• You can limit access on a per-software basis. E.g. a child may use spreadsheets and word processors at homework time, but not games.
• You can make sure that children don't tamper with your main settings and configuration of Windows
• You can restrict access to specific hard drives, software, and utilities like the Windows control panel or network settings.

In short, parents can control just about anything relating to Who can do What, When they can do it and Where ad When they browse the web.

BitDefender Internet Security

If you don't already have anti-virus and firewall software installed, and you do want parental control software, check out BitDefender Internet Security. (Link goes to our BitDefender page with a full description of all the features.)

BitDefender's Internet Security suite puts a big emphasis on the parental controls/child safety aspect of online safety.

You can download a free trial of BitDefender Internet Security from the links on our BitDefender page.

The BitDefender parental control module can:

• Block access to web sites and e-mails you deem inappropriate.
• Block access to the Internet entirely, (e.g. for certain periods of time, such as when it’s “homework time”).
• Prevent children from running games, chat, file-sharing programs or other programs, according to your settings.

With BitDefender Internet Security you are also getting top quality anti-virus and firewall tools of the kind we recommend on this site.

NOTE:
The best internet security suites usually develop from a quality anti-virus tool, (perhaps with a firewall added). Then the vendor adds extra features like email monitoring, protection from identity theft, anti-spyware tools, and so on.

You can see elsewhere on this site that BitDefender is one of the brands you can trust for your anti-virus and firewall needs. What I am saying here is that, among the security suites available from security specialists, BitDefender is the brand that has put the most features into a parental control and child web safety module.

You will see on our BitDefender page that, by using an internet security suite from a good provider, you can deal with a whole lot of security issues at once for low price.

Don't forget, you can get a free trial of BitDefender software from the links on our BitDefender page.