Parental Control Software
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Parental Control Software
May 2009
I would like to know about what parent's experiences have been with screening devices
or screening programs for computers? We have a MAC. Much thanks.
I need it now.
I mentor a number of teenaged young men. With them and their families
I often suggest x3watch. It doesn't stop the sites, but it does send
you a report of sites visited twice a month that empowers you to have
a conversation with your son about it. The website where you can read
more about it is: http://x3watch.com/ The free version is available
for mac. Goodluck, I'd love to know what you finally choose.
Erik
We used during a difficult time a software program called Safeeyes.
It is like Fort Knox. I know my son and his friends devoted hours
and much research on unprotected computers to trying to hack it, and
were unable. It can be set to stop porn, drug info, cheating sites,
suicide info, etc. It can also record all IM conversations on a
machine. (When I turned this on, I told my teen I had done it, and
that I would only go in and review the conversations if I felt I had
to do so for his safety. That time came, and, even though he knew in
advance about the recording, there was useful information there.)
The downside was it can be a pain. It can block legitimate sites,
requiring parents to go through a routine to OK them (which of
course always happens at midnight when something is due the next
day..) At one point it blocked all google images; a real pain for my
art student child - and it took quite a bit of work to find a
workaround for that. It took over an hour to manage to uninstall it
on one of my kids 18th birthdays (perhaps their favorite gift!) But
the phone support is good.
I would recommend this if you have a serious need to block.
do what's necessary mom
March 2007
I'd like help finding computer software to monitor the
amount of time my teen spends playing games. Any assistance
would be appreciated; where have you found programs? can
they tell you the amount of time on different games? how
easy are they to install and use?
I would prefer something transparent so we can all see the
amount and talk about it together.
Thanks
Mom tired of arguing
I like Child Safe, because you can not only monitor what
they are doing, but you can also give them a set amount of
time they can be logged on. Its not as invisible as some
of the ''spyware'', but your kids know that you are
watching, so they are much more conscious of where they go
and what they chat about.
http://www.webroot.com/consumer/products/childsafe/features.html
Jenny
Oct 2006
We need to put parental controls on our computer. It's an Imac, the newer one with
the intell chip. I'm frustrated because there seems to be limited choices for macs,
and I've heard that these kinds of controls really slow down the computer. We also
don't want to have separate profiles for each user. It's a family computer and we
sometimes work on the same projects and it is just too complicated to have
separate profiles for everyone. We have several browsers, and tho I guess we could
limit that I'd prefer something that would work with different browsers. I'm only
interested in blocking porn, not chat groups, politics and violence. Is there
anything
out there that will work for us? Unfortunetly it is not possible to get the guilty
party
to knock it off. I am sad to be in this position and very grateful for any advice
that
you might have,
Thank you
I'm running Kids GoGoGo. Seems to work well for us.
http://www.makienterprise.com/kggg/kidsgogogo.html
Jeff
My friend Anne who edits Net Family News (my absolute favorite source of info for all
things family & tech-related) told me about SafeEyes (www.safeeyes.com/safe-eyes/
toprated/) which she says is a favorite among software reviewers for filtering on both
PCs and Macs. Check out netfamilynews.org while you're at it... I've been reading
netfamilynews for years and always find useful info -- and eye-opening letters written
by parents and kids themselves. (Also, an aside, Anne just co-authored ''My Space
Unraveled, a parents' guide to teen social networking''/ might be useful)
Susan
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