It’s no secret that these days one can access whatever material they desire by simply typing relevant keywords into a search engine like Google and it’s not surprising that governing the activities of your children or teens whilst they are online is near impossible. (Although Google does by default set content filtering at medium this can be easily bypassed).

 

Luckily there are some great programmes that parents can install that allow full control over the content which their children view and download online, these programmes can be fully customised to suit the requirements of all parents and are very cost effective. Below is a list of the top three web content filters for personal computers and the features they offer;

 

1. Net Nanny Parental Control (www.netnanny.com) $55NZD is a gold award winning programme and provides many features to the concerned parent. This programme was designed with ease of use in mind and can be easily installed and configured. Not only can access to the internet be controlled by keyword, URL or subject you can configure reports that will automatically notify you of internet usage during predefined periods of time. Net nanny also provides remote access so you can monitor your children’s online activities whilst you are away if you are so inclined.

 

2. Cyber Sitter (cybersitter.com) $50NZD is a silver award winning content filtering programme, it offers options that are very flexible and has more features than many other web filtering programmes including over 30 categories which can be blocked. Ease of use was measured as “good” but not up to the same standard as Net Nanny.    One feature that Cyber Sitter has that the others don’t is Hard drive inspection, this feature will automatically scan your computer for objectionable material and erase it. Cyber Sitter will also detect spyware that may have been downloaded. 

 

3. Safe Eyes (safebrowse.com) $70NZD a bronze winning programme that was also the most expensive content filter tested in the trial.   Safe Eyes uses a different approach to content filtering and excels at protecting multiple computers, a great feature when most households have more than one. With Safe Eyes the parent can create user profiles and records of what each individual is allowed to view; these profiles are housed on the safe eyes website and can be accessed from any PC. This approach makes it much easier to manage the filtering needs of multiple people using many computers in a household.