Good parental control software?

[ejr]

My oldest child will soon be surfing the internet (she is 8 years old). She has already started asking about it, but we have only let her surf with us thus far.

We will soon be looking into parental control software. I am putting out some very initial feelers with this post. Ideally, I would like sonmething:

1. Free
2. Easy to use
3. Light on system resources

It doesn't need to be too complex just yet. She won't be doing any serious surfing for a number of years and probably won't be on-line without us over her shoulder for a while either. But you never know what a kid might do when your back is turned.

Any suggestions?

[twl845]

I'd like to know as well. My Granddaughter has been surfing for about 6 months on sites like Disney and cartoon network. She somehow got on U-Tube and while there got a porno pop up. I tried the IE7 site advisor, but it's a pain in the A.. to use. :blink:

[ejr]

I read some very good reviews about the Parental Control Software by Crawler. Crawler has a bad rep in this forum, and rightfully so as they used to be associated with adware. But I believe that they have cleaned up their act. At least it appears that they have.

I use their product Spyware Terminator and love it. But I have only been using it for a month or so. I read some reviews on-line about their Parental Control product and it got very good marks for being easy to use yet also doing a good job of blocking unwanted sites. To bootm it's free. I haven't tried it yet, but am going to. If you try it, I would like to see your feedback.


http://www.crawlerparental.com/

[Pedro]

A review: http://www.consumersearch.com/www/software/parental-control-software/index.html
And Tech Support Alert: http://www.techsupportalert.com/more/extended.htm#78

[~*Nat*~]

When my kids were younger I always used Cyber Patrol. Just one of the programs I trusted, not to mention it made me feel like the Police Chief in this household, lol. :P ;D

[Tony]

Does anyone else have any experience either good or bad on any free parental control software???

I have been looking at these.
http://www.freeshield.com/
http://www.k9webprotection.com/
and
http://www.crawlerparental.com/

I am currently using a free 3 month trial of Mcafee security centre.
What i like about the parental controls with this is that i can configure different settings for different users.
The only downside being that i would have to pay once my trial expires next month ( which i wont be doing as funds are tight at the moment)

[mrgigabyte]

i agree Cyber Patrol all the way worth the money one day had about five high schoolers with my daughter trying to change the settings so they could get online , they try for a couple hours then give up they could not do it !!! 8)

[BlueZannetti]

-{ Quote: "i agree Cyber Patrol all the way worth the money one day had about five high schoolers with my daughter trying to change the settings so they could get online , they try for a couple hours then give up they could not do it !!! 8)" }-My own recommendation would be router level filtering since a Linux Live CD would allow surfing with impunity if the controls are based on software running on the PC.

Blue

[Martijn2]

I would certainly take K9webprotection, great free filter that's very hard to bypass.

[Tony]

-{ Quote: "My own recommendation would be router level filtering since a Linux Live CD would allow surfing with impunity if the controls are based on software running on the PC.

Blue" }-

I`ve tried this before (netgear DG834GT) but whenever i try to "Block Sites Containing these Keywords or Domain Names" then it stops me from accessing a lot of websites that i use regular, and no matter how i try to alter the words i can never seem to find a happy medium.
Unless of course i am doing it all wrong (there would be no suprise there) and there is another way, then its going to have to be the software way.
Maybe you have a list of keywords that you use that you could let me have or would a different router be advised.

Thanks for all of the replies to my question :)

[BlueZannetti]

-{ Quote: "Maybe you have a list of keywords that you use that you could let me have or would a different router be advised." }-Not keywords, a router based agent. Example: a ZyXel ZyWall 2 Plus (http://us.zyxel.com/web/product_family_detail.php?PC1indexflag=20040908175941&CategoryGroupNo=FF94F854-B6F1-47B7-BFB7-4660CF8649C8) with a Content Filtering subscription.

Blue

[bigc73542]

In my experience K9 is a very good one.:thumb:

[Tony]

-{ Quote: "Not keywords, a router based agent. Example: a ZyXel ZyWall 2 Plus (http://us.zyxel.com/web/product_family_detail.php?PC1indexflag=20040908175941&CategoryGroupNo=FF94F854-B6F1-47B7-BFB7-4660CF8649C8) with a Content Filtering subscription.

Blue" }-

I`ve had a look through the knowledgebase for my router, and content filtering can only be applied via keywords.

Thanks for all the replies :)
It is looking like K9 is the favourite at the moment.

[Tony]

I have been using k9 for a couple of weeks now and i am very impressed with the program.

Thank you for everyones help and advice :)

I feel a lot happier now with AVS, Spyware Terminator, Boclean, Comodo firewall, spywareblaster and of course K9 protecting my computer.