PARENTAL CONTROL

Life moves quickly for children these days. The exchange of information over the airwaves and on the World Wide Web is moving even faster. Our kids are exposed to a whole world of information that if leftunchecked, they have complete and total access to. As parents we must take steps to make sure that the information our kids are accessing is appropriate. Parental-control software helps parents stay in the loop, and several of the best programs cover a lot of the same ground. Below are features of security programs that parents must weigh when deciding how to monitor a childs online practices.

Customized Settings
The ability to modify the settings of a program to seamlessly change when you change users is a big plus. After all, your teenagers security settings should be way different than your toddlers.

Web-Site Filtering
Keeping kids from accidentally or deliberately visiting inappropriate Web sites is a key element in parental-control software. Levels of filtering vary from program to program. Flitering can range from just a simple warning that the content ahead is not suitable to completely blocking it all together.

Access Control
Controlling how long the kids spend on the computer is another important feature. Some programs can limit use of the entire computer to a pre-scheduled time period. Others will let you customize this feature all the way down to even limiting specific software use.

Remote Notification
One big reason parents want this type of software is that they're not always around when the kids are using the home computer. Most programs out there have options that allow an email to be sent to the parent upon a child accessing the home PC.

Watching Openly
Some parental-control products install secretly, so you can monitor kids without their knowledge. Some software manufacturers take a different approach though. These developers beleive that the best approach is an open, cooperative one.

Below are some software options to help with monitoring your childs web usage.
Bsafe Online
CyberPatrol Parental Controls 7.7
Net Nanny 6.0
OnlineFamily.Norton
Safe Eyes 5.0

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