Internet Filter

[esanchez]

Do you guys know of a good internet filter for my kids??

[Daniel Bates]

ContentProtect?

[danchez]

no filter is 100%, your best bet, put the computer in the living room and they can only be on it when an adult is present.

[newtune3]

We use Stopsign. It is an online subscription based software that is so good. It is a virus, adware, spyware, popup software that scans daily or how ever ofter you choose. All I know is 5 years ago when we got highspeed we started getting nasty popups for adult sites. Stopsign killed them. It is so worth the $19 or so bucks per month we pay for three machines here at home. You can set the security level for each machine and it seems to work great. No I don't work for them, but it does work for us. LOL Might just check them out for yourself.

[toverman]

Originally Posted by danchez

no filter is 100%, your best bet, put the computer in the living room and they can only be on it when an adult is present.

+1 for that. Same goes for a TV.

[Junderwood]

Originally Posted by danchez

no filter is 100%, your best bet, put the computer in the living room and they can only be on it when an adult is present.

Agreed, there is no better filter, but if you want one "NetNanny" is a good choice.

[Cajungaltx]

I highly recommend K9 Protection - I have it on all of our computers - and it is REALLY awesome.

It has multiple settings - you can 'only' allow the sites that you want... (like for a youngster, you can set the few sites that they can go to, everything else is blocked)... or you can block entire groups (social groups, pornography, clothing, etc.)

It also monitors the usage...and you can set 'specific' times for them to be ALLOWED to use the computer. My daughter would get up in the morning, and grab a bowl of cereal, and start watching disney shows....and would be running around like a bat out of hell trying to get ready when her ride got here.... so no pc before 8am now....

Covenant Eyes is another really good one - their filtering is really good - and it doesn't slow it down at all. It's not really pricey....but K9 is just as good, and is free.

One thing to be aware of, is that as far as I'm aware, 64 bit OS's aren't 'filter' friendly. The filtering programs are still catching up a bit there...

[RussFrost]

I use OpenDNS (www.opendns.com) for my home network. It is free and will work for any computer that attaches to my network with no additional setup. I did look at the K9 application - It looks great, however, I preferred putting the filter on the network side and configuring it one time for everyone that uses the network rather than installing and configuring software on each individual system.

Filtering is only one piece of the "kids and internet" equation, but I've been happy with the performance of OpenDNS.

[Dennis_H]

I use K9 on the kids PC also. I like it except for the no 'per account' config settings. What is good for a 10 yo may be a little too restrictive for a 17 yo. Definitely set it up in a public area though...

[srwatters]

I use the built in parental controls of Mac OS X. Seems to work pretty well and I check the logs on a weekly basis. You can lock it down as much as you want to then allow sites at their request. Depends on how much effort you want to put into it...

[esanchez]

Thanks for all the replies, I know Vista has some sort of filter too, but the kids machine has XP.

My kids only go to disney, cartoon network, nick.etc.

Just want something filter for just in case they decide to wonder..