Online Child Protection Software

In years past kids were online a lot. But these days, the numbers have absolutely exploded. The Internet is a big place, and kids can naturally get “lost” or swept up into specific areas that could place them in harm’s way. The answer is not to ban kids from the Internet. If you’re a parent and have chosen to go the “no Internet” route, then that’s your decision. But most parents are looking for a safe middle ground. They don’t want their kids exposed to inappropriate content, but do want a safe and secure browsing experience. Protection software falls into four, broad categories: 1) content filters; 2) usage controls; 3) computer usage management tools, and 4) monitoring. Content filters work exactly how they sound – they filter undesirable content from appearing on your child’s device. Some of this is pre-defined, but many software programs allow parents to personalize this area with all any content (websites, etc) they would like to restrict. Usage controls are great for placing time limits on browsing or playing games. If you define 1 hour of after-school time online, you can program that into the software and the device will not allow any browsing or gaming activity after the one-hour period. Computer usage management tools are similar to content filters except that they enforce the use of pre-defined software. Kids can get into downloading and installing all sorts of things. With computer usage management tools, before wayward kids inadvertently install Malware, the management tool will catch this. Lastly, monitoring is perhaps one of the most common features parents are interested in. This tracks the activity and location of what’s being clicked on and browsed. Monitoring is fundamental for likely all the reasons you can possibly imagine. Thankfully this industry is well stocked in terms of some excellent software providers. Here is a list of the leaders. Qustodio Available for Android, iOS, Mac, Windows, Nook and Kindle, while most of the parental control software is aimed squarely at Windows, Qustodio brings their full suite to nearly every popular operating system on the market. The free version alone is extremely comprehensive, and with the paid version you receive social media features as well as SMS monitoring. The only con is the pay issue, but nothing is free in life, so expecting protection software to be free and cutting edge would be ridiculous. OpenDNS FamilyShield From the renowned OpenDNS (if you don’t know about them, fire up the Google machine), FamilyShield comes stocked with ready-made block lists, will improve your browsing speeds, and also runs at a router level (something that is not standard, surprisingly enough). FamilyShield operates on mobile devices as well as PCs, and this means all information passing through is filtered and thoroughly vetted. The interesting part here is you can apply this to your network router as well. All that needs to be done is changing the DNS server numbers. The big con with the FamilyShield is the setup is not the easiest. You can’t win them all! KidLogger If you know about or use Whatsapp, this is the software for you. Kids nowadays are doing a lot of chatting and calling on Whatsapp as well as Skype. The free version of KidLogger is so complete that folks generally stick with it and forget about the paid version. That sounds great, right? You bet, and while free is good, the main downside to the free version is it doesn’t record audio and only covers one device. But the rest of the bells and whistles are ever-present! Protection, protection, protection. We can’t stress it enough, and any of these programs provides excellent peace of mind if not anything else. If you’ve got kids, print this post out and tack it to the fridge!