Child protection software?

[SHRED]

My friends are looking for internet filtering software.
They have young children and want a little added "insurance" along with monitoring them.

Any good choices available, you would recommend?

[RC]

1. Forget the software.

Put the computer out where it's use can be monitored.
Raise your kids with the notion that you will trust them till you have reason not to.
With the software the kids will make it their hobby to crack it - and they will. Why call attention to what you don't want them exploring.

[RoyGBiv]

2. My thoughts exactly ...

"Protection" software is pretty much a money pit. As noted in a discussion I had in another recent thread on this issue, I briefly tested a commercial software package that is billed as putting an end to arguments about when the computer can and can't be used and what the kids are able to do while using the computer. I shut it down in five minutes. Granted, I have some experience with this, but any motivated kid who is computer literate will figure it out pretty quickly.

The worst thing about this kind of software, imo, is that it makes parents complacent and creates a circular problem that makes the original problem of kids accessing imappropriate content even worse. Parents rely on "the software" to do the monitoring and so start paying less attention to what their kids do with their computers, which of course makes it even easier for the kid to crack it since he or she isn't being watched. And since they're not being monitored except by the software, which now isn't running, they engage in truly dangerous activities they might never have known to contemplate before the "protection" was put in place. Indeed, in the attempt to crack the protection, the kid will end up as some fairly sinister websites, which are often know for their ability to avoid the filters that would otherwise block them, that offer all sorts of illegal and otherwise negative influences.

The computer goes in a common room so all activities at least have the possibility of being noticed. If worse comes to worse, it is password protected at the BIOS level and requires a parent just to turn it on.

[Massacure]

3. Bios passwords can be gotten rid of too.

Especially if someone has managed to crack a protection program, it shouldn't be too hard to figure out how to reset the BIOS. Some bios versions have back door passwords that can be found online, and its also possible to reset them by removing the CMOS battery or resetting various jumpers within the computer.