Updated Feb 2022. Free parental control isn't good enough, it just isn't clever enough, and ultimately doesn't protect you or your kids online. We think you need proper multi-device protection controlled via a parental console.
We asked parents, with young kids, what they want. At the bottom of his page, we have also listed how to set up parental control for free on browsers such as Google Chrome, Safari and services such as Netflix. We also included some games.
The most important issue to parents is time limits. Controlling the time kids use their devices automatically is a tremendous bonus. Why waste your time when a machine can just shut down when you want? Safe search, content blocking always feature highly in surveys.
Time-Limits Safe Search Content Blocking
The three issues are tackled with paid parental control. Phones are getting more important as Games like Fortnite, ROBLOX attract new users through 'free to air' phone versions.
Parents are concerned about TikTok. We know this from our survey, chat questions during online talks. There is a link to our article 'How to make TikTok safer but not safe' at the very bottom of this page.
Can you control what comes up on the TikTok feed from the start?. Answer No. But you can set Time limits and switch on 'restricted mode' in Digital Wellbeing. The article covers this and shows you how to do this. For example, when you start TikTok, select 'family and pets' as your interests. Then get rid of the stupid videos quickly, by not watching or swiping up immediately. Hold your finger on a video for a second or so, then click 'Not interested'. TikTok, YouTube will figure out your tastes as quickly as possible to keep you hooked. Make a point of liking wholesome content and watching it.
TikTok is a great experience. Take the time to follow these quick tips if setting up a child's account for the first time. Also, use the family pairing option just underneath Digital Wellbeing. TikTok says they check content in person. We know as recruiters ring our offices every other day
Last TikTok tip, don't like what your kid is seeing, delete her account and start again with a new name, follow the tip above.
Please do our survey.
I bought your recommended F Secure SAFE which I'd never heard of before. I'm glad I did. When I did that, my younger kids now read or drew or something like that before they went to bed and it helped my sleep so much. It prevented them from being up late and watching TV and missing school. Amanda Burton, Reading, Berkshire. (via email Oct 2020)
Time limits are some of the easiest things to enforce and set up on your kid's phone. It is also one of the most effective features.
Under 7s | 90 minutes /day Ages 9-11 | 150 minutes /day Ages 11-12 | 180 minutes /day
Week Ends, Half Term, Holidays Under 7s - 120 minutes /day Ages 9-11 - 180 minutes /day Ages 11-11 210 minutes /day
These are the combined times of Xbox, Fortnite, ROBLOX, Snapchat, TikTok. These guidelines need to make sense to parents and are based on common sense.
We know from the classroom that kids know that laying in bed all day every weekend is not good for them on any level. These recommendations are longer since coronavirus came into our lives and are realistic.
Increasingly, there is a view that parents know their kids best and should decide time-limits themselves for each of their kids. Although many people might find our guidelines helpful.
This is something that most parental controls are good at, especially our recommended apps, which we test before listing on our site. Most of these apps can block content, sites, apps which are NOT suitable for your kid in real-time, dynamically, which is exactly what you want. Content Block means being able to block content as a category.
Help your kids understand that sometimes they may come across things that they’d prefer not to see, or that you would prefer they didn’t see.
Many sites have a minimum age limit of 13—this includes websites like YouTube and Facebook. Explain to your child that age limits are there to help protect them from unsuitable content.
Talk to other parents about what they think and how they manage it. Ask your child’s school what sort of rules they’re following and what they recommend. It is common sense. You can switch on Google Safe search, other kids' search engines, set YouTube safe mode to make sure they see age-appropriate results.
Talk about what is fake and what is real. Show them that not everything they see online is true. And to check other sources if something appears too good to be true’-CBBC has videos and articles you can share with your child.
First, it is important to realise that Google enjoys over 95% of all European search activity, and something similar around the world, it does dip down to nearer 80% in places like South Africa. Google's adverts, recommendations, and tracking don't make it ideal for children at all.
DuckDuckGo is safer than other search engines. It does not protect or prevent kids from going to any website they desire and is not a search engine specifically designed for children. However, it can do a better job at filtering inappropriate content than other search engines do. DuckDuckGo does not filter its results either. When SafeSearch is on, it helps filter out explicit content in Google's search results for all your queries across images, videos, and websites. While SafeSearch isn’t 100%, it helps block explicit results, like pornography, from your Google search results. We recommend using the more limited but well-controlled search engines in parental control software apps, like Kaspersky, BitDefender, and F-Secure SAFE.
Xbox: xbox.com/en-IE/parental-controls PS4: PlayStation.com/parental-controls PS3: PlayStation.com/PlayStation-3/ Nintendo Wii: support.nintendo.com/parent Nintendo DS: nintendo.com/parents PSP: PlayStation.com/get-help/
Control maturity levels of Netflix content from the Your Account with Manage Profiles. Netflix parental controls are:
For more info, go to help.netflix.com/264
Activate parental controls on the most popular internet browsers.
Google Chrome: google.ie/safety center/families Safari: support.apple.com/ Firefox: support.mozilla.org/parental-controls Internet Explorer: windows.microsoft.com/using-content-advisor
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