Safe Chat prog for kids?

Hi,

I know nothing about chat programs, I never use them (except of course CryptoSuite from DCS/Jason).

Well, my question is:
Could you advice me a "safe" chat program for the kids (about eleven years old) of friends of mine?
They are on XP Home (Dutch).

Thanks a lot in advance !!!

Cheers, Jan.

 

Hi Jan,

I use mIRC myself, I've never used any other chat program, so I can't really recommend one.

But as far as "Safe" is concerned, do mean the chat environment or the safety of the client itself?

As far as the environment goes, all (as far as I know) irc channels have Ops (Moderators) that monitor the activities, controlling the conduct and such.

Regarding the safety of mIRC, you can pretty safety configure it to block downloads (DCC Sends), PM etc. The only two things I can recommend is to not install it in the default directory C:/mIRC, as there are worms hard coded to take advantage of that. You can install in it anywhere else, different folder or different drive, it doesn't matter. The other is to never ever type and run a command that starts with $Decode/$Encode ..... It's a Viral surprise , that'll open up a backdoor. You can read more about mIRC here, they have really good FAQ's --> http://www.mirc.com/. Here's a pretty good Thread I found re: mIRC Safety - http://www.antionline.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=231350

And here are a few more links that I googled that maybe helpful to you:

Basic Chat room safety for kids - http://oror.essortment.com/chatroomsafe_rlrc.htm
A Comprehensive List of Kids Chat Rooms on IRC and The Internet - http://www.chatmag.com/topics/agegroup/kids.html
Chat Nightmares - http://www.pcsndreams.com/Pages/ChatNightmares.htm

HTH,

Steve

 

Thanks Ron and Steve !!!

Lots of reads for me

A little bit more background info:
Their parents know almost nothing about PCs.
So they, we, depend on the defences
I spend "some" hours in the past to discover "some" things on their old machine
The kids know that they should not answer strangers, and they don't do that. They only would love to chat with their friends from school, sporting-club, etc.
I love the kids, and I know that they're looking forward for chat-possibilities.

Thanks again Ron and Steve !
Cheers, Jan.

 

Msn Messenger is possibly the easiest to use.

Jimbob

 

I say children are extremely vulnerable to strangers on chat programs, some strangers try to lure children through various means and ways.
I don't think that there is a safe chat program for kids, IMHO no chat program is safe at all. In my words, this is how I describe the internet: The internet is 99% full of dangers, spyware, malware and it is only 1% good with people concerned about security and privacy online, and some educational websites.
If you want to let your children chat online safely, you can use a parental control program to monitor what they are chatting and their every single move. Just remind the kids of the general rules of online safety.
If you want to give them a chat program, I would recommend MSN Messenger, with the recent virus spreading via MSN Messenger, take safety precautions.

 

I'd rather recommend Yahoo! Messenger, its good. BTW, the 1% you speak of is Wilders' Security Forums right?

 

When I was about 13 years of age, I got MSN messenger and I even used chatrooms a little. All I would suggest is advising them on the risks of using such online applications and how to keep safe.

Jimbob