Avira Social Network Protection

Bottom Line

Avira Social Network Protection (formerly known as SocialShield) keeps a watchful eye on your children's social networking activity -- and their reputations. Unfortunately, the program, which is now free, doesn't monitor as many social media networks or cell phone activity as it once did.

Setup and Installation

Simple, but you'll need your kid's login and password. Avira Social Network Protection uses an app to monitor and archive activity on Facebook, Twitter and Google+. Avira Social Network Protection is the rebranded version of the popular (paid) social network monitoring program SocialShield; most of the reviews are for the previous program. Since buying SocialShield, Avira has renamed the program and made it free -- but reduced the range of its monitoring (for example, cell phones and dozens of other social networks including MySpace) in the process.

Setup is straightforward: After installing the app you (or your child) will register the user names and passwords of their social media account(s) in the app. If you prefer a more cooperative approach, you can also email a link for the app to your child and have them install it. Avira Social Network Protection works through the cloud so you can manage your child's social networking activity via the online management system (your kid can too). It does not require you to friend your kid or even join a social network.

Features

Easy-to-use dashboard, with an eye on language, photos, friends. Avira Social Network's dashboard is clean and intuitive. At the top of the overview page is a meter indicating how many troublesome activities your child is engaging in and being exposed to. Avira Social Network doesn't only monitor your kid's activity but keeps an eye on friends as well and can even scan private messages. The meter is marked green, yellow or red, depending on how many alerts have been issued recently. The program scans four areas for potential trouble: safety and friends (for example if your tween suddenly connects with a 40-year-old), language for safety (like if someone posts about drugs) and reputation (think: bullying), and photos for reputation.

Avira sends parents immediate emails on critical alerts on highly risky behavior or posts, plus weekly activity reports. The weekly reports are a nice plus not offered by every free (or even paid) parental control program. Alerts are also issued for questionable activity by your child's friends. Unlike many other parental control programs that are equivalent to spying, Avira monitors activity but allows the kids to see the reports as well -- a big plus for teens who may balk at having their privacy invaded or may set up second accounts to escape their parents' watchful eyes. (Norton Family is also free and advocates its software be used with a heavy dose of cooperation and communication between parents/guardians and children.)

Performance

A step down from the old product. As it stands, Avira Social Network Protection is one of the best programs out there dedicated to monitoring the increasingly murky world of social media. While there are almost no complaints about its performance, however, it doesn't have the breadth or depth of its predecessor, SocialShield, which worked with dozens of other sites like Flickr and MySpace and also created phone reports logging who your kids were calling or texting, and how frequently. (Avira told ConsumerSearch it is looking into cell phone partnerships for the future.)

The product has racked up positive (if somewhat dated) reviews; PCMag.com likes that it goes farther than its competitors by using smart technology that alerts parents of new friends with weak connections (like few friends in common). If your child is bullied, Avira will try to track down the perpetrator. Its language monitoring gets decent if not somewhat mixed reviews; it flagged "Moby Dick" in one test but failed to catch profanity in another. Because many of the reviews praise the eliminated features such as cell phone monitoring -- and because many parental control programs now contain social media scans -- Avira Social Network Protection is a runner up rather than a best reviewed for parental control programs.