What is Parental Control Software

Parental control software is not just about adult content anymore. Let's face it, the internet is becoming increasingly dangerous with each passing year. The old set of familiar problems which faced every family with Internet access included: pornography, child predators, gambling, virus/spyware/trojan attack sites, and hate sites. Sadly, this list has continued to grow with time. More recent additions include problems related to the use of social network sites like facebook and twitter. Increasingly, families face possible legal issues due to the illegal download of copyright infringing materials by younger family members. Also, online games reduce kids' productivity and take up time they could be using to do homework. Finally, many children don't have enough guidance or sound judgment when putting personal information online. Parents face all these concerns, which impact their family's security: physically, financially and legally. Preventing these issues from arising is the main reason why parental control software exists.

Parental control software is specialized software that blocks your computer's access and interaction with the internet based on parameters that you set. You can regulate who sees what content and when or how.

How do you pick the right parental control software for your family?

Every family is different. Different families have different values--although there are certain core values that almost all families can agree on (e.g., they agree that adult content, hate sites, viruses, and spyware are all bad threats that need to be avoided). Each family differs based on differing family values and also differing ages ranges of children. Some families might view sites that are hateful towards certain groups of people as just a matter of individual discretion for the child involved while other families take a more proactive and restrictive approach. Other families view access to information on contraception, sex education and abortion as a part of a prudent and responsible childrearing. These families let their children access sex ed sites for a better understanding of their own bodies and reproductive health. On the other hand, other families view this information as something that should come strictly from the parents.

Regardless of your views on different contents, one thing is clear: the parental control software that you use must be flexible and robust enough to accommodate whatever content policies your particular family has. Content policies within the family vary not just because of different values but also different ages. Some families keep certain content strictly forbidden for children until they reach a certain age. Once the kids reach a certain age, these families relax their content restrictions while other families maintain consistent policies regarding the internet until the children become adults. Regardless, the parental control software that you're using should be flexible and robust enough to be able to accommodate whatever editorial policy your family has.

What are the things you should keep in mind when you're considering a particular parental control software?

Ask the following questions when considering particular software packages:

Does it allow you to control categories of websites?

It's very easy to think of parental control on internet access on a site-by-site basis. However, on a practical level, this is very inefficient and quite a hassle. There are thousands and thousands of possibly objectionable websites out there and you really can't sit down and list them out one by one. Many parental control software packages allow you to block websites categorically (e.g., social network websites, adult content websites, gambling websites, even suspected or known virus or spyware attack websites). These categories help parents save a lot of time when it comes to blocking material for their children. It is important that the parental control software title you are considering must have this feature, and the category restriction system must be easy to understand.

It must also be very diverse, just as there are millions and millions of websites out there, there are possibly thousands of ways you can categorize them. It should be categorized in a way that is easy for you to understand and easy for you to make important content access decisions for your children.

How strong and robust are the software's filters?

The bottom line is that the parental control software's quality and feasibility for your family all boils down to its ability to filter content or website access on your home computer. That is the core job of any parental control software title. Study the filters discussion below thoroughly so you can evaluate any parental control software package adequately.

What are the most common filters?

Category Filter

At the most basic, the software should be able to filter based on content category. So, if you set blocking to prevent access to gambling websites, or particular hate sites or adult content sites or certain types of sites, it should be able to do so. This particular type of filtering should not be a problem because this is also the oldest filtering feature that most parental control software titles have.

Social Networking Filter

The software should also allow social network filtering. This is above and beyond regular site-filtering because there's so many social networks and they use different IP addresses. They also use different domain names. A very robust social network filtering feature takes into account all the differing ways social networks can be accessed. The software should include social network usage reporting. Many parents allow their children to use social networks but only up to a certain amount of time or only certain areas within that social network. This is understandable because too much facebook time means less homework time or less extracurricular or sports activities. Social network usage reporting is a good idea and should be a feature you should look for.

Chat Filter

Other blocking or filter feature you should look for include chat filters. One of the growing problems in the internet when it comes to the protection of children is their vulnerability to strangers. These creeps want to “befriend” your child through social networks, chat sites, chat groups at Yahoo, MSN and other big chat providers. These are open areas and you don't really know who your child is talking with. The ability to filter chat requests made by your computer is extremely important. Look for this feature and study how the software blocks chat because chat functionality, just like social networks, can get really sneaky and there are many not so obvious chat programs that can be accessed via the internet. Make sure that the chat filtering capability of the parental control software title you are considering is flexible enough to be able to account for these and block them accordingly.

Additionally, if you allow your child to chat with friends online, you should give them rules on who to chat with and when to chat. Sadly, these rules aren't always followed. Look for chat filtering functionality to help you enforce your child's chat restrictions. Chat filters work by monitoring and blocking conversations based on information sent to your child or information sent by your child. It could be keyword-driven or uses some other way to tag information entering or leaving your Internet connection.

P2P Filter

P2P blocking is also a key filter to have. Peer to peer file sharing is normally a good thing for legitimate and non-pirated materials because it allows faster downloads even if you're on a slow connection. However, this technology has been open to a lot of abuse and a lot of illegal materials, copyrighted materials, are being downloaded using this technology. Sadly, parents may be on hook for their children's illegal behavior. To avoid these legal-related headaches, look for p2p blocking in your parental control software title. It should be very robust--not only blocking certain p2p behaviors in the most common software titles but blocking operations like access to particular IP addresses and ports. The more diverse your parental content software's P2P blocking feature, the lesser the chances somebody in your household can download illegal copyright-infringing materials. This reduces your exposure to expensive lawsuits or even jail time.

Newsgroup Filter

Another key feature to have is newsgroup-blocking technology. Newsgroups used to be very big in the early 90's, before the world wide web and more common ways to access the internet became popular. Newsgroups are specially dangerous because they tend to contain many illegal materials that can't be found through websites because of better policing at websites. Newsgroups are extra jurisdictional in nature. There are many countries with differing laws or no laws regarding particular content that is illegal in the United States.

Game Monitoring

Finally, look for games-monitoring functionality. Games eat a lot of your child's time. Depending on the rules of your household, you may want to limit the time your child spends on games online. Parental control software can also monitor offline games usage (single-player games, local games). If productivity and usage are issues for your family, you should definitely look into this feature.

How many browsers does the software support?

Another thing to keep in mind when considering parental control software is the number of supported browsers. Not all parental control software support the major browsers. Many just focus on the big two: Firefox and Internet Explorer. Not all families use either of the two despite these two brands' market dominance. Some families use less popular titles such as Chrome, Opera (for very fast browsing), and other little-known browsers like social-driven browser Flock. There are other open-source browsers that are for specific purposes for companies and business users. Make sure the parental control software you are considering supports your browser because many households install more than just one browser. Make sure that you are fully protected. You don't want to be in a situation where your parental control software protects against Firefox and Internet Explorer but your child installs Opera to get around parental controls.

How easy is it to use?

Not all parents are tech-savvy users or geeks—and that's okay. In many households, the children are more computer-literate than the parents. There are parental control software packages that are easy enough for adults to use but have enough protective features that even tech-savvy kids cannot short-disable its protective measures. Make sure sure you consider carefully the ease of use and protection levels of the parental control software that you are evaluating. The key rule is: easy for adults but hard enough for kids.

The Bottom Line of Parental Control Software

The internet is increasingly becoming a dangerous place for children. This guide should give you enough information on how to pick the right parental control software solution for your family's particular need. Just like each parental control software is different from the other, each family is different. Different families have different values, different policies regarding the types of content kids can access, as well as differing rules regarding the age kids can access certain content. Regardless, this guide should give you enough working understanding of how parental control software works and what kind of features it has so you can pick the right solution to fit your family's particular situation.