As a parent, you want to protect your children as much as possible. The internet has made life easier in many ways, but it’s also made it a lot more stressful for families too. Even with the best online filters, you can’t always guarantee that your child won’t stumble across adult content.
However, there are a number of preventative measures you can take.
OpenDNS
One program that many parents recommend is OpenDNS. It enables you to block a whole category of websites and best of all – it’s absolutely free. It will help you to ensure your children only have access to safe websites.
To use OpenDNS you’ll need to change the settings in your network connections section of your computer. You’ll see a section which says ‘Use the following DNS server addresses’. You’ll need to change these to the OpenDNS servers 208.67.220.220 and 208.67.222.222. Once you’ve done this it will not only make your internet browsing safer, but it will also speed it up to.
You’ll then need to configure the settings so that it blocks all adult websites. There are actually a lot of businesses that use OpenDNS to block social networking sites so their employees can’t use them. You can also use OpenDNS on tablets and mobile phones.
Therefore no matter how your child decides to use the internet, they will always be protected.
If you’re not very tech savvy and you need help with changing settings and installing parental controls, visit Quib.ly – a technology and parenting blog that supplies parents with a plethora of information on child safe websites. You can get all the answers to your questions there from various experts and a forum of similarly minded parents.
Using Windows security
Microsoft Windows comes with some pretty great parental controls you can take advantage of. You can choose to block specific sites or block a certain category of web content. If you’d like to limit the chances of your children coming across adult content you can activate the parental controls by going to your computers control panel and selecting ‘user accounts’.
There will be a ‘set up parental controls’ option and under that you’ll see ‘block some websites or content’. You’re able to choose the level of content you want to keep.
This isn’t the most advanced security feature available, but it is a good start.
What you need to remember with parental filters is that they aren’t 100% effective. A lot of content that is deemed inappropriate for children is pretty subjective. This means filters won’t always pick up everything you don’t want your children to see.
The best way to stop your children viewing adult content is to keep a close eye on them. Of course you can’t always be there 24 hours a day, seven days a week. That’s when a good filter comes in useful.
After your children have used the computer, check the internet history. Did the filter work correctly or did your child manage to find questionable websites? If they did, you can report the sites and block them specifically. These days there are a few great advanced parental controls you can use and they’re typically free to use too.
