Protecting my 9 yr old twins... I need help!

[ljc1174]

HI all, long time no talk to!

First of all forgive me Paul if this is the wrong place for this post. I looked over the topics and this seemed to be the one to fit...but I'm never right... anyway...

I need to know if there is anyway I can block porn sites from popping up when my kids are on the puter, this does not happen to me and I have the pop-up blocker from yahoo, it always works well for me. But I recieved an email from iEntry wanting to confirm my email address... puzzled me, I've never visited their site, so I turned on the history and found a couple other things I did not like... porn sites... Whether deliberate or not, I don't want this happening in the future. I have spybot s&d, but for some reason it hasn't been downloading all the updates and I haven't had a chance to look further as to why.

Is there anything I can do to the registry to block these or is there a simpler way to do this?

Please help!!! I'm a single mom and I don't need them turning into horndogs any sooner then they need to!

Thanks,
Lori

[snowbound]

Hi Lori :)

This will certainly help,

http://www.staff.uiuc.edu/~ehowes/resource.htm




snowbound

[ShotgunGirl]

By far Eirc's Agnis List is the best as Snowbound suggested. Here is just another blocker of sorts.


http://users.tpg.com.au/adslgoej/


Description:
Parental Filter is a 100% freeware porn blocker. It specializes in blocking porno websites nothing more, nothing less. Sometimes children come over your house and they say can we go on the internet, and you think what if porno sites start popping up. This stops that from happening. Parental Filter is automatic, you just turn it on and porn gets blocked. You may have children who are getting curious about the Internet and don't want them exposed to material that may adversely affect them in the future. Parental Filter is here to help

[Primrose]

Advice on Internet Access for a 10 yr old

Got a frantic call from the mother of a 10 yr. old girl on how to stop a bunch of pornographic pop ups and web page links. The PC is WinXP and the daughter has a limited user account. The initial thought is to stop all internet access. The best I could find on how to do this on a per user basis is a utility from DougKnox that will prevent specified users from running iexpolore.exe . Really need some good recommendations on what to do.


www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,9406867~mode=flat (http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,9406867~mode=flat)



link fixed - Detox
;)

[ljc1174]

Thanks everyone for the help, I think I'm going with the Parental Filter thingy. I know the others will work but I'm not too thrilled with disabling Java because I like to play yahoo games! hehehe

But if it comes down to it, I will, I still have other games that don't require Java.

Thanks again! :)

[ShotgunGirl]

"IE RESTRICTIONS" a freeware program you can locate at Webattack.....use with the filter to prevent changes to IE settings.
Put your games sites in the trusted zone of IE....an lock the settings to your desire in the other zones.

[IceTech]

The Family Browser has proven to be very popular with the parents in our neighborhood. It's simple to use and easy to maintain. It is completely freeware and has no time limit nor extra conditions.

The Family Browser (http://www.thefamilybrowser.com/)

Check out these features:

-{ Quote: "Filtering: The Family Browser has a filtering system unlike any other. Each web page is inspected page by page, frame by frame for objectionable words. This is done invisibly prior to the rendering of a page. The benefit of this technology is quite simply that little maintenance if at all is needed to run the browser. Many other products and sites boast "safe" content or "safe" URLs. This is very limiting to the user. The Family Browser allows free and unrestricted browsing to the entire web. Every site is analyzed on the fly!

Parental Options: The Family Browser has a parental menu page that is only accessible via a password which is chosen when the browser first installs.

Record Navigation: The Family Browser has a check box option so that all navigation may be recorded. This allows the parent or web guardian to use a calendar on the parental options form to view all of the sites visited.

Allowable Domains: The Family Browser has provisions for allowable and disallowable domains. This option allows sites that the browser disallows to be available for navigation. Conversely, sites allowed by the browser but deemed as undesirable may be added to the disallow list.

Default Browser: The Family Browser may be selected as the default browser. This insures that if any browsing is invoked by other applications such as AOL Instant Messenger etc. that The Family Browser will be launched.

Mail to Link: The Family Browser allows the parent or web guardian to enable or disable the mail link. Thus, if a child clicks on a mailto: link, the browser will allow or disallow the machines default mail program to launch. This protects children from being drawn into conversations via e-mail. Very Important feature.

The Lock Option: The Family Browser will flash a padlock on the menu bar when an objectionable site has been determined. If the parent or web guardian choose to allow the site, the lock must be clicked and the password needs to be entered. This site will not however be available during subsequent sessions unless added to the allowable domains list.

Cookies and Registration: The Family Browser has no tracking mechanisms nor requires any registration at all. This product has no revenue whatsoever and is designed by the author for the protection of children surfing the web.

...and many more features." }-

I sincerely hope this helps you. :)

P.S. I forgot to add that it includes a pop-up killer and is updated regularly.

[ljc1174]

Thanks for all the responses!!!

I'm trying the parental filter and it seems to be working great, but with all these options I have now, if I find something about this I don't like I have others to choose from!

[javacool]

You might also try SpywareBlaster as another defense against dialers, browser hijackers (that may hijack your homepage to adult sites), spyware, and other unwanted stuff:

http://www.javacoolsoftware.com/spywareblaster.html

It doesn't have to run in the background, either, so you won't have to worry about having something else running that slows down your computer. :)

Best regards,

-Javacool

[optigrab]

Though not free, Outpost Firewall Pro has a VAST array of content filtering options. I really believe it would be useful for parents (as I am about to be!) :D

http://www.agnitum.com/products/outpost/

I think this is a really good thread, perhaps worthy of sticky-status, or as a new forum on Content Filtering.

Regards
Optigrab

[Shunned]

Had a very difficult time getting into this site. Seems alot of child product websites are slammed by pop-ups and related junk:

http://www.we-blocker.com

To download you will be asked for a name and e mail address. A test of this proved that any old name and email address can be used so do not give your real personal information.
Did only a brief research on this product to see if any known spyware was contained within it but found nothing listed. Of course the decision to use or not is completely yours.
Oddly in an effort to help-out you family people it has been noticed how very little freeware child protection programs there are. Also, that the websites that do list any such products freeware or shareware have questionable links, ads, and yes spyware products. Had to lower my security dramatically to enter most of the websites. Even the one that is being posted above.

[MOORE]

i read this somewhere ok :

for free you can set your browsers proxy connection to point to a invalid ip or black hole , set all connections to use the proxy that goes nowhere and in the exceptions window , put all the good addresses that are allowed to bypass the proxy .. free parental filtering for kids that arent hackers yet..lol

havent tried it , plenty of good sugestions here though ... ;D

[minacross]

is the family browser an IE based one? ::)

[ljc1174]

I haven't tried anything other then the Parental Filter...so far I have no complaints with it. I tested it with some nasties as well as not so nasty like matchdoctor and it blocked all! The only adjustment I had to make was the sites it has listed for random transfer. I removed alltavista, alltheweb and a few others that like to leave tracking cookies...other sites they have are college sites like berkley, which was fine, spybot found nothing on them.

NOT only is this blocking my kids from pron sites, it's also blocking my soon to be ex-h! He doesn't live here anymore, but he does come to visit his son and I leave to run errands... he thought he could get on the puter, but he soon found out otherwise. Don't get me wrong, I'm not a mean person, but one, my boys don't need to see what he does and two, he was having online affairs and meeting women offline while having another g/f somewhere else. Which is who he is living with now. At any rate, I feel better knowing him nor my children can do anything further to damage their minds!

And this works against my ex for the mere fact that he knows NOTHING about computers and can't turn it off to save his life! hahahaha

Sorry if this was too much info!

But I am thankful for all the replies and if this program doesn't work out, I have plenty other options from everyone!

Thank you! ;)

[Shunned]

" Sorry if this was too much info! "


There are times when we all simply just need to share. An there are other times when no one near us seems to be listening. Fortunately, this forum is a very tightly wrapped group with life experience an the ability to care.

[DMo224]

I have two sons, both adults now (19 & 21), but I still like to have protection from certain sites. I think us adults that don't like "adult" sites need something to keep them away. I have the pop-up blockers, but they still find ways of coming up. So, this thread has been useful to me, too. And it's much appreciated.

And the story was not too much. For example, my nephew asked me if I could get him a picture of a girl pop singer. For the url, I type in her name, incorrectly, and got a p0rn site. :o

[IceTech]

Note to Minacross.....

Yes, the Family Browser is based on IE.
-{ Quote: " The Family Browser is built on Internet Explorer Technology and as such utilizes all of the under working components that a end-users Internet Explorer browser utilizes. Hence, if it can be done with Internet Explorer it can also be done with The Family Browser." }-

Good to note this info. ;)

[srfox]

But the Problem remains, that if the child knows a lot about computers, there are any number of ways to prevent filtering programs from loading at startup in the first place and I don't see any way around this other than the firewall suggestion that someone had, Also you can load restricted sites in the security section using something like IE-spyad, but it doesn't keep up with all the porn sites anymore. But do check out: http://www.staff.uiuc.edu/~ehowes/main.htm as they may have other suggestions.

There are programs which control what can be accessed through a browser, but all of these are pretty costly.

The only real solution (for computer savvy kids) that I see would prevent even a kid from changing access and programs options, would be if you had two computers and set up one as a server and then set up the child only as a user on a system, then security protocols can be set to not allow changes to startup stuff, while preventing access to close down running programs and such. This is involved, I know, but other than trusting your children to do the right thing, a lot of teens know how to get around most childproof stuff. There is even a setting in Spybot, which allows you prevent some startup program from running without deleting it.
A new program which is discussed on this forum may be a solution. It's call Process Guard, and I think it may prevent registry changes to startup files and well as protecting the file (child filter) from being shut down.

Anyway if anyone else has any ideas, I'd like to hear it.

[ljc1174]

You have a good point, luckily at this time, my boys do not know how to stop strart-up programs!

I've used IE-spayed in the past, it worked well, but like you said, it always has to be added to.

One thing I didn't like, but can easily be fixed was a safe site called babiesonline. Parental Filter rerouted me to one of their sites, and I'm not sure why.

[srfox]

-{ Quote: " quoting: Lori link=board=22;threadid=24008;start=15#msg143207 date=1079127112]
You have a good point, luckily at this time, my boys do not know how to stop strart-up programs!

I've used IE-spayed in the past, it worked well, but like you said, it always has to be added to.

One thing I didn't like, but can easily be fixed was a safe site called babiesonline. Parental Filter rerouted me to one of their sites, and I'm not sure why.
" }- Another filtering software, I just found, which is free is http://membres.lycos.fr/primefilter/ This is a free family filter.
Regarding IE-Spyad, what I do is just put the link to the update in same folder as IE-spyad then just unzip new file in same directory overwriting old one. Then I just run the Bat file and uninstall old one and reinstall new one. Pretty simple really, once you've done it a few times. Yes it doesn't filter everything, but it's a good addition to everything else.

[srfox]

If when they get older and a little more sophisticated you might want to use something like: http://www.allegrosurf.com/ which has the ability to set different user permissions and can filter by content and/ or by site. It also monitors them.

The other link I gave you to Prime family filter runs invisibly, so child doesn't even know it's running. Check out his links page.