Free and Online Filtering Programs

Parental control software without fees or installations

There are a number of free parental control programs available, though reviewers concur that you get what you pay for -- such programs tend to lack the features and support of their paid cousins.

The most comprehensive reviews of freeware for parental control come from Choice magazine, which pits them against commercially available programs in its comprehensive multicategory analysis. The only downside is that Choice hasn't updated its roundup. In the meantime, both free and commercial software have gone into new and sometimes revamped versions.

Parental Control Bar is freeware and ranked third overall by Choice and is "as good as commercial program CyberPatrol." Drawbacks to freeware are usually a relative lack of features, say Choice's editors, and lack of technical support. Download.com points out that the latest version doesn't work with Firefox 2, despite claims to the contrary. User reviews are split.

Among freeware parental control software options, K9 Web Protection by Blue Coat places sixth in Choice's review. Download.com gives K9's latest 32-bit version (4.0) a good rating too, and for once the site's readers concur. However, critics maintain that K9's big drawback is lack of instant messaging and peer-to-peer controls, rendering it a good fit for younger children but not teens.

Microsoft has a freeware version of its parental controls, called Windows Live Family Safety. Similar to Vista's and Windows 7's control options, Family Safety is primarily useful for those users who want to add those operating system parental controls to an older Windows XP system. Editors at Download.com rate the program very highly, especially liking how it can apply various filters to different Windows users. The site's readers, though, give Family Safety a low user rating, mostly due to compatibility problems.

Web-based controls are another option for cautious parents. We found encouraging reviews of one such service, OnlineFamily.Norton. Although Norton's parental controls on such products as Norton Internet Security don't get much praise from reviewers, the company's online offering fares better. Neil J. Rubenking at PCMag.com says that it "is a strong contender, matching almost all the features of the top paid parental control systems." He adds that it is still outclassed by Net Nanny in some respects, such as filtering secure (HTTPS) sites. Since OnlineFamily.Norton is managed over the Internet, it works for both PCs and Macs (though Rubenking notes that IM filtering doesn't work for Macs).

Like Rubenking, David English at ComputerShopper.com is impressed with OnlineFamily.Norton's emphasis on interaction between parents and children. For example, OnlineFamily.Norton allows children to send their parents an explanatory message when they want to access a possibly inappropriate website that isn't banned outright.

Subscriptions to OnlineFamily.Norton were originally supposed to cost 60 dollars per year beginning in January 2010. But as of this update, the website is still free. It is unclear if and when Norton will charge for the service. Other competitors are starting to appear, however. CyberPatrol Online Protection (an online version of CyberPatrol Parental Controls) was announced in March 2010, but we've not seen any reviews at the time of this update.