Best Parental Control Software

Net Nanny, Safe Eyes and Cyber Patrol are top programs

Your choices about what type of content is objectionable are based on your moral, social, political and religious beliefs. Furthermore, you may find some types of content inappropriate for your youngest child but suitable for your oldest children. According to reviews, SurfControl's CyberPatrol Parental Controls (*Est. $40 per year) offers parents a range of options.

PCMag.com's Neil J. Rubenking, who reviews a vast amount of security software, has the most to say about CyberPatrol Parental Controls. He finds CyberPatrol to be among the most fully featured parental control programs; in fact, despite the name, CyberPatrol Parental Controls can also be used effectively to monitor and control users in library, school and even office settings. Editors at Child-Internet-Safety.com agree, though they point out that so many configuration options make CyberPatrol tricky to use.

CyberPatrol can be customized for each child by using existing Windows user accounts, or additional user profiles can be created (an unlimited number of profiles is available). Parents can customize options for limiting time on the computer or any particular application. The program can also block access to other programs, even ones that don't access the Internet, such as your financial software. In addition, CyberPatrol can filter, monitor and record instant messaging and chat programs.

CyberPatrol includes 14 categories of questionable content. You choose which categories to block and at what level. Flexible parental control extends to individual web pages. Parents can block entire websites or just objectionable content within web pages; you choose which words to block. The program includes blacklist and whitelist filters that allow you to block or allow specific pages. You can even override a filter for a one-time exception. (A blacklist filter blocks certain specified pages, while a whitelist filter allows only pre-approved pages to pass.)

If you don't want to spend the time to micromanage, you can adjust the strength of the filters and let the program decide. Other advantages of CyberPatrol include preventing children from sharing personal data, the ability to run in stealth mode and free technical support. CyberPatrol now also offers remote management, which lets users administer an unlimited number of computers from a single machine. But Neil Rubenking finds this to be its weakest feature; unlike Net Nanny, Safe Eyes, and other competitors, CyberPatrol doesn't offer remote notification of your children's online activity. Moreover, it "doesn't offer true remote management at all," because CyberPatrol's controls only work on the local network. Rubenking points out that "that's not much use when the kids call you at work asking for help."

Cost is an issue with CyberPatrol Parental Controls, because the program requires annual subscriptions. Luckily for consumers, CyberPatrol has recently switched to a three-user license, making it competitive with some rivals' pricing. Extra users cost about $20 per year.

Safe Eyes (*Est. $50 per year) costs a bit more than CyberPatrol, but it has been updated more recently, and extra users can be added for slightly less (*Est. $17). Safe Eyes offers the ability to create up to 10 user profiles, with a helpful account summary page that gives an overview of current settings and allows customization. User accounts are not tied to Windows user accounts, but they can be connected with it for automatic login if that's desired. This allows more flexibility in account management than programs that only offer the option of using Windows user accounts.

PCMag.com reviewer Neil J. Rubenking likes Safe Eyes' reporting features, and notes that the software now places its emphasis on managing, not restricting, family computer use. Safe Eyes is one of several programs that can be controlled from a remote location via the Internet. Changes become effective immediately. If your child engages in online behavior that you or the program has pre-determined is unacceptable, the program's publisher, InternetSafety, will contact you by e-mail, text message or telephone. Like CyberPatrol, Safe Eyes offers the ability to blacklist (always block) or whitelist (only allow) websites. TopTenReviews.com says that there is a delay when Safe Eyes runs websites through its database, which can lead to slower Internet surfing.

Safe Eyes doesn't have as many features as CyberPatrol, and the level of control is less versatile and flexible. And unlike its other main competitor, Net Nanny (see below), Safe Eyes is not capable of real-time analysis. However, it can block 35 categories of content. On social networking sites, Safe Eyes can record activities and produce reports so that parents can monitor usage. It will record if any identifying information is posted on these sites by a child. But more than one critic points out that it won't block the child from posting that information in the first place, something that some other parental control solutions, like OnlineFamily.Norton (discussed in the section on free and online filtering programs), do.

Safe Eyes allows parents to establish a profile for each user, and kids must log in before they are allowed access. You can set time limits; the program logs web usage and chats. Safe Eyes also allows you to restrict or log chat usage, file sharing and access to any other Internet applications. While Safe Eyes can block applications for specific users, clever children can simply rename programs to run them. Game controls are also rudimentary, critics say.

Safe Eyes is Macintosh-compatible, and reviewers note that cross-compatibility is one of the program's strengths. Neil J. Rubenking at PCMag.com says that "if you need a product that works on both Macs and PCs, Safe Eyes is your best choice." Its multiple licenses make it ideal for use in households with two PCs and one Mac, for example. But Macintosh-only users will definitely want to consider Leopard and Snow Leopard's integrated parental controls before purchasing an external software program for this purpose, especially because not all functions of the Windows version carry over to Safe Eyes on the Mac.

By far, the most acclaimed parental control software currently available is Net Nanny (*Est. $40 per year) from ContentWatch. Net Nanny offers remote administration and the ability to block a wide variety of applications including chat, newsgroups, instant messaging, file sharing and e-mail. It also uses dynamic content analysis to analyze every page, so if a site is brand new or has changed, it will be blocked if inappropriate. Recent improvements include the ability to mask profanity on websites that are otherwise not blocked (such as news pages with inappropriate comments left by other readers).

Net Nanny's particular strength is its intuitive interface, designed with non-tech-savvy parents in mind. PCMag.com recently honored it with an Editors' Choice award, while TopTenReviews.com, ComputerShopper.com, and Child-Internet-Saety.com are among those that top-rate Net Nanny, though the latter look at previous versions. Critics say that ease of use, dynamic contextual analysis of URLs (allowing real-time blocking) and remote management rank as its strongest features. PCMag.com's Neil. J. Rubenking lauds its excellent Flash-based reports and notes that key features are "hardened," so they are not easy for kids or even teenagers to circumvent. Computer and online games can be blocked individually, or by their Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB) ratings.

Net Nanny comes with a license for one computer, and it offers toll-free tech support. Additional licenses must be purchased separately (*Est. $20 per additional computer). TopTenReviews.com notes that settings are transferred between computers, making multiple installations easier. However, unlike other parental controls, Net Nanny doesn't restrict time across installations. Kids who have used their allotted computer time could log onto another Net Nanny-equipped computer in the house and, in effect, reset the clock (PCMag.com reports that this will be fixed in the next edition). Net Nanny comes in a Mac edition, but like Safe Eyes, the Mac version is different. Worse, settings are not synchronized across operating systems -- a hassle for those households with both Mac and PC computers.

Parental controls built into operating systems

As effective as the top parental control software can be, reviewers do point out that the controls built into major operating systems may be enough for some parents. For many years, Microsoft and Apple have included some level of parental control as part of their products.

We found several reviews of the parental controls in Microsoft's Vista, including a review at CNET that compares Vista and Leopard, the competing Apple OS, in that regard. Unfortunately, no reviewers have yet taken the time to pit Microsoft and Apple's latest systems, Windows 7 and Snow Leopard (OS X 10.6). But separate reviews of these new platforms suggest that, in general, the latest Windows and Mac operating systems don't represent a huge change one way or the other. Both Microsoft and Apple provide videos on their websites demonstrating these functions for technophobic parents.

Windows 7 and Vista offer all the major features of standalone software: time limit settings, adjustable levels of site and application blocking, IM blocking and usage logging. They also boast the ability to restrict or allow games based on ESRB ratings. One criticism is that Windows doesn't allow parents to customize time limits as well as some programs (you can't set a daily or weekly maximum, says PCMag.com's Neil J. Rubenking), and another is that it doesn't offer remote management.

Microsoft charges no fees to use its parental controls. Updates are automatic. The lack of annual fees is a competitive advantage.

Apple's newest operating system, Snow Leopard, is an incremental upgrade from the successful Leopard OS. Both offer comparable features to Windows and standalone software, except that they don't allow the same fine-tuned control over games. However, CNET's review found that Leopard's user interface was much more intuitive and easy to use, and that it had better control of time limits, using a drop-down menu instead of a calendar grid. Mac's operating systems also allow parents to make the computer easy for a young child to use, removing unneeded icons and simplifying the interface. And they offer the ability to remotely manage a child's computer from the parent's computer.