Internet filtering for a kids machine

My nephew, who is a minister, asked be about Internet filtering software for his son's (10 year old) new Vista laptop. The dad would like for his son to be able to browse anywhere, but have a content based filter decide when a site might not be appropriate. (There seem to be two camps for this type of software. Ones that are content based and others that are "whitelist/blacklist" based. He prefers the content based.)

In addition he would like for the software to be able to send an over-ride request to his office if his son thinks that the filter has prevented him from going somewhere it should have actually allowed him. The request and subsequent approval or disapproval should be as near real time as possible. This would allow the son to be home working on some school related work, hit a blocked site, fire off a request to dad at his office for permission, then go elsewhere on the web and then when dad's reply came back proceed back to the site in question.

Anyone know of any decent app for this sort of thing? The are a few on the market that purport to do this, but then there are reports of some of them failing horribly, or being purveyors of targeted ads etc.

Thanks in advance,
Gary

 

I'm not sure if it'll meet all the demands you're asking for, but I found a good list of Internet Filter Software Review 2008. I would recommend Net Nanny. It only costs about $30 which is relatively cheap compared to others that cost $60 or more. But, I have heard that it installs itself so deeply into the registry that sometimes it messes with your system when you try to install third party software on that computer.

 

I've heard this one on Christian radio. Know nothing about it though.

http://bsafehome.com/?13850

 

vista home has built in parental controls, but it pops up a password box that an admin will need to override to allow access to blocked sites. i dont know of any that allow remote access to override it...

vista home also can track all sites visited by them and save them in a report for the parent to look at. Personally i think its better to give them open access to the internet, but watch over the list of where they went and discipline them and explain why certain things are wrong rather than trying to prevent them from doing it, cuz we all know where there is a will there is a way, and an internet filter wont cut it.

 

Thanks for the list. I forwarded it on to him!

Gary

 

I agree with you in principle. But I know how EASY it is to fall upon a pron site without trying. And THAT is the sort of thing he is trying to prevent. Too many times you go to Google and get what looks like a good hit, only to be redirected to somewhere you had no intention of going.

Gary

 

Well said! I couldn't agree more!

I see what you're saying, and it's not a bad idea to have a filter to block the "obvious" porn websites.
Though simply relying on a filter, a simple little program like that, isn't a great idea and nizzy1115's suggestion is much better. So even if they do get a filter to block the obvious porn sites they should still monitor what webpages were visited and talk to their kids about it.

And let's not forget that a blocked page might trigger curiosity in some kids (it sure would for me). And they might just try to find ways around it just to see what's being hidden (though since he's just 10 years old, it shouldn't be a problem right now but he'll probably find ways around the filters as he grows older).

Anyway, back on top: The link provided above (with the reviews of webpage filters) should be enough to pick out a useful web filter for blocking obviously inappropriate sites, but I'll repeat that giving the kid as much freedom as possible and teaching him as he goes is the best way to go.

 

Hey, you guys are preaching to the choir! Pun intended ...big ol' grin...

I never meant to imply that the ONLY thing in play here was the filter, this was just the only thing we needed some first hand advice on. The review site seems like really good start. I was hoping someone here might have some actually experience with one or more of these products.

Gary

 

http://www.covenanteyes.com/

Very good software. Will even give you reports on bad list sites and can block them.

 

A worthy suggestion, but does not appearer to have REMOTE control capabilities. Remember folks, the ability for the dad to administer the kids machine while dad is at work is a REQUIREMENT in this case. It's not a "nice to have" option. It is a necessity. Dad does not want the kid to have to wait for several hours for dad to approve the requests for access to a site. Both Dad and the kid are on broadband and want to make use of the technology to allow this to be an immediate interactive decision process.

Gary

 

It is just what the doctor ordered. And the pastor should be pleased as well!

Thanks!

Gary

 

Gary,

I was going to recommend maybe looking into what Vista has to offer but perhaps an ISP could be a solution. In our family when we first switched to DSL we signed up with at the time, SBC Yahoo! DSL. The service provides like up to 10 email addresses, and a SBC browser. Now to have these parental controls, the user must sign into the SBC Browser with their [email protected] account. It does not have to be your primary email address but for a 10 year old why not. The 10 year old can sign onto the account, which the parent must set a level (child, pre-teen, mature teen, adult, etc) and then all sites/etc are logged. If the kid happens to want to visit a site, he or she can "request permission" which sends an email to his or her parent's respective SBC email account. Then the parent can visit the site, and choose to allow or deny permission.

Its about $25 or less a month for this DSL service I think...but you get a wireless router and premium Yahoo! email addresses.

 

Have you tried Microsoft's Windows Live Family safety-It provides activity reporting, website filtering and is able to be remotely accessed. Best of all, it's free.