Keep Your Kids Safe Online With Advanced Parental Controls
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I downloaded and tested every single antivirus with parental controls that I could find. I looked for the best software that included all the anti-malware and child-protection features to keep my family safe online in 2023.
Like most parents, you may be curious what kind of content your child is consuming online. Luckily, with Xfinity you never have to wonder. Learn more about activating parental controls on the Internet today, and keep your family safe while surfing the Web.
As a PCMag security analyst, I report on security solutions such as password managers and parental control software, as well as privacy tools such as VPNs. Each week I send out the SecurityWatch newsletter filled with online security news and tips for keeping you and your family safe on the internet.
These software and hardware solutions let you block unwanted web content, limit screen time, restrict the use of risky applications, and more. Basically, they help keep your kids and teens safer on their computers and mobile devices.
Before you start imposing limits and restrictions though, take some time to learn how your connected kid uses technology. Communicate with your child before implementing any of these options, as it is important they feel you respect their privacy. Otherwise, they'll find a way around any restrictions, even if you put them in place with your kids' best interests in mind. Also, as tech addiction increasingly becomes a problem, it's important children learn the value of good device habits for themselves.
Norton Family encourages parents to talk to their children about online safety rather than just spying on their online activities. Norton Family can supervise an unlimited number of devices and lets you monitor all your kids' activity from the web or from a parent option on the mobile app. We love the program's affordability, easy setup, and handy geofencing tools.
Mobicip offers an excellent range of parental control features with three very affordable subscription pricing options. Parents can keep tabs on their child's location, monitor the YouTube videos they watch, and manage their screen time limits.
Want to keep an eye on who your child is interacting with on certain social networking apps? Mobicip makes that possible, as it is one of the best parental control services we've reviewed that still offers social media monitoring. You can access this feature by signing up for the Premium plan.
Parents who want a more hands-off approach to parental control tools. If you are primarily looking for an easy way to keep track of your child's location or manage their screen time, Locategy is a good option.
Qustodio has just about every feature an anxious parent wants, including web content filtering, robust app blocking, and a detailed activity log. You handle all configuration and monitoring either via Qustodio's attractive and easy-to-use online dashboard or the parental mode of its mobile apps, which means you can set rules and review your child's activity from anywhere.
Parents who want to keep tabs on what their children are doing online with the comprehensive Net Nanny Family Feed, which shows their activity in real-time. It also offers some social media protection when it comes to monitoring child activity on various social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Tik Tok, and Tumblr.
Gone are the days when a single parental control utility on the family PC was sufficient for keeping your kids safe and productive. Modern kids use all kinds of internet-connected devices, and parental control systems must keep up.
Check, too, that any limits on the number of child profiles or devices won't be a problem. Large families, for example, will appreciate that Norton Family works on an unlimited number of devices. Most parental control software operates as a subscription service, so pricing tiers tend to align with device limits, though some offer free versions for basic protection on a limited number of devices. If your kids are strictly smartphone users, take a look at our roundup of mobile parental control apps.
If getting parental control coverage installed on each of your family's devices starts to seem too difficult, consider a whole-network solution, such as Circle Home Plus. These systems perform content filtering at the router level, so your settings affect every device on the network. Naturally, you don't get the same fine level of control and detailed monitoring you get with a local agent on each device, but this is a much broader solution.
Some kids spend more time on gaming consoles than any other device. The parental control services in this roundup don't cover consoles, but we can help you learn how to enable parental controls on gaming consoles.
As kids get older, content filtering may start to seem pointless. At some point, you start to worry more about their interaction with the wider world. Sure, if their friends come over in person, you can at least meet them, but what about friends on social media and other contacts your child never mentions? Who are they, really, and what are your kids discussing with them? Although some supervision is acceptable, you still need to respect your child's basic right to privacy and encourage open discussion, rather than using parental control software as spyware.
Some services let you monitor contacts and messages and keep an eye out for potentially dangerous or unsanctioned situations. You can even block new contacts or view message content with some parental control software. Keep in mind, this primarily applies to SMS texts; messaging apps such as WhatsApp, Snapchat, and Signal do not fall under the same scope. Most of the services we've tested have given up monitoring social media for now.
The parental control capabilities of video streaming services vary widely. Some do not offer any options to restrict content, while others may simply offer a kid-friendly mode that broadly limits the streaming library to content appropriate for young children. The best services allow you to set rating restrictions on individual profiles and prevent your kid from simply switching to an unmonitored profile without a password or PIN.
Most kids are on mobile devices at least some of the time, and many are almost exclusively accessing the internet on their phones. Fortunately, many parental control services offer a companion app that lets you view your child's activity, set basic rules, and view notifications as they arrive. This kind of companion app is particularly useful for responding to access or time-extension requests on the go. Otherwise, you manage everything online or locally on the PC, where you have fine control over activity reports and restrictions. Any changes you make should propagate to your children's devices when they connect to the internet.
Before settling on a particular parental control utility, you should to make sure it supports all the device types in your household. While all the products in this roundup support Windows and Android, compatibility with macOS and iOS varies. Apple's Screen Time features for iOS, iPadOS, and macOS are quite capable and come with the added benefit of first-party support. Microsoft (Family Safety(Opens in a new window)) and Google (Family Link(Opens in a new window)) both offer first-party parental control tools, too. You should consider using these free first-party options before you pay for a third-party solution.
When you get beyond the basics, parental control systems start to diverge, with many advanced features to help them stand out from the crowd. Among these standout features are YouTube monitoring, geofencing, and remote device locking. Microsoft's Family Safety app even keeps track of your teens while they're driving to encourage better habits on the road. You'll also find advanced versions of standard features. For example, the best content filters don't just use a database of categories. They analyze page content, filter profanity, and allow you to add custom keywords and categories you want to block. We also like those services that support multi-factor authentication for account logins.
The key to success for parenting in the digital age is to keep an open conversation with your child and to take the time to teach them about key internet safety tips, like the tried-and-true rules below:
Parental control routers limit the websites and services your kids can access from any device on your home network. For this reason, they offer an easy way to keep your kids away from sensitive content without installing parental control software on every one of their devices. However, a parental control router won't let you manage screen time by device or what apps your kids can install and use offline. To supervise as much activity as possible, you may want to consider combining a parental control router with features like Digital Well-Being on Android devices or screen time on iPhones and iPads.
If you have kids of varying ages, or you want to buy a solution that will grow with your kids, you'll want to look at something that also provides age-appropriate filtering categories, rather than just a generic list of "kids" sites and apps. After all, there are lots of sites that may be perfectly OK for a teenager that you definitely wouldn't want your four-year-old accessing.
Even if you've talked to your kids about screen-time limits and responsible online behavior, it's still really tough to manage what they do when you're not there (and even when you are). Parental controls can support you in your efforts to keep your kids' internet experiences safe, fun, and productive. They work best when used openly and honestly in partnership with your kids. 2b1af7f3a8