Free parental control software?
Tim
Southwest PA Icrontian
I just gave my 12 year old nephew a PC that I rebuilt with Windows XP Home SP3 on it. It's primary use will be for World of Warcraft, but he'll have other things on it too. He's done good in WoW so far, I trained him here at my place, with 2 complete PCs running side by side, and he's got a level 10 Dwarf Hunter and a big brown bear for a combat pet.
Before he's allowed to have internet in his own room, his Dad said I have to put some sort of program on the computer to stop all the porn stuff from getting through. A reasonable request, I think.
Any suggestions on what would be a good FREE program for this? WoW is rated T for Teen, and that's the highest that will be allowed to come in.
Is Smoothwall (Linux) good for this purpose?
Before he's allowed to have internet in his own room, his Dad said I have to put some sort of program on the computer to stop all the porn stuff from getting through. A reasonable request, I think.
Any suggestions on what would be a good FREE program for this? WoW is rated T for Teen, and that's the highest that will be allowed to come in.
Is Smoothwall (Linux) good for this purpose?
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Comments
While keeping his child away from internet 'predators' is very important, I feel that using a parental control program as an excuse for a parent to shirk their responsibilities to teach their children where and what is not safe on the internet. I think its important for a child to know about a bad site and hear why it's bad from a person they trust than for the kid to try and get into the site and be rejected because of a filter their parents put up. He's 12, I think thats old enough to learn the responsibilities of using the Internet.
Although I see that is is not your choice to put it on the kids computer, so I'll help ya out. AOL has a free one, I dont know how well it works, but its aol and aol is pretty good with security. https://parentalcontrols.aol.com/parconweb2/home/landingPage.jsp?encodedOrigUrl=http%3A%2F%2Fparentalcontrols.aol.com%2Fparconweb2%2Fhome%2FviewMain.do%3FNCID%3Daolcmp00300000002804
Sorry for the rant, just wanted to make my opinion known >.<
That said, Smoothwall is perfect for this, but it requires a separate, dedicated machine, two network cards, and is not for newbies to set up.
GREAT! Awesome detected in your sector Gate.
It is always the parent's responsibility to protect the child from the parent's fears and prejudices. But it's also the child's responsibility to use their head and talk to their parent about stuff.
My sister just finally got internet in their house. All I know so far is it's DSL. And the modem is in the parents' bedroom, so I got a 75 foot Ethernet cable on eBay and as soon as it gets here I'll take it over to hook up the other computer.
My nephew's Dad knows nothing about computers, and my sister doesn't know a whole lot more, as far as I know.
I'll be over there every week or so to check on things, make sure the antivirus programs get run, and other general maintenance on the computers.
I use the following software on our three computers at home:
http://www1.k9webprotection.com/
I read numerous reviews and tried out K9. While I'm no IT guru, it's been very effective, is highly customizable (allowed research on breast cancer), came highly rated, and amazingly enough is free.
My kids have neither computers nor TVs in their bedrooms, but we have both in the house. We've taken a middle of the road attitude. We talk to our 13 and 11 year old about porn, racism, sexism, and violence. We give our son significant rights but with those rights goes a reasonable expectation of responsibility. We don't depend wholeheartedly on the filter, but we do utilize it to keep the worst of the internet away.
Also worth adding spybot if you haven't. That will mod the host file and create a list of know sites with security issues. If you try to access them it will redirect you to "page cannot be displayed".
Huh?
shill = someone paid by company x to advertise product x on fourms
Then with the discussion of web and key loggers - I gotta wonder, if there isn't a much bigger issue at hand then wanting to protect your kids. That's crossing the line into oppressing your kids and controlling your kids.
Sure, if I ever had kids, I wouldn't filter the world for them. They'd be able to see everything that we've done. And I mean everything. Granted I'd be there at their side to explain everything...But I don't believe in nanny software or practices, but I understand their use. We aren't always going to be at their side to help them understand the world. And that is the biggest shame we have wrought.
Depressing a thought, isn't it?
I can say this. She'll likely have her own computer, I've got enough to go around, when she's old enough to need her own computer and privacy. I will have it going through OpenDNS (assuming it's still around). I'll have it lightly locked down through their service and that's about all the 'parental guarding' I'll be doing on it. The rest I'll hope to ensure through trust in her good judgment reinforced by helping to educate her on what good judgment is. Sure it's easy for me to say, right now I've got about 6 years before I really have to worry about it. But that's my plan of attack anyway.
Can you elaborate on serious filtering please!!
QFT