Free Parental Controls

Our own personal security while on the Internet is a high priority. In parallel with that is the protection of our children, and the ability of parents to place some restrictions on children's access to the Internet. Parental Controls have been at the forefront of safety and security agencies developing tools for the Internet for years.

The software available today that provides parental controls will generally allow you to do a few things. The most important feature is that the software will let you block a desired list of websites, or websites that have a certain word in their name. Obviously this can make it very easy to block a great deal of websites that could be considered as offensive to children. Some parental control applications will also allow you to use a database compiled of known offensive sites to help you setup your program. Other features that may be offered in Parental Control applications are time-restrictions on Internet use, password protected files, profanity filters, and disabling downloads/uploads.

While Parental Controls applications are essential tools to parents, they also have a big risk involved in using them:

1. When setting up your filtering, be sure not to make your initial list of restrictions too strict. This could end up blocking just as many non- offensive sites as offensive ones. It is always best to add words to your filters one at a time, test, then keep adding.

You can get any or all of the free Parental Control programs here: