Hey,guys, my daughter is 10 years old now. She has been starving for a laptop for a long time. But I am afraid that she may visit some unhealthy websits. It seems that this parental control is very popuar online, but none of my friends has ever used it before. Can any of you give me some advice whether it is useful?

Only on an apple computer not. iPad sorry

Yes it is good

Colin

You could passcode lock it so she only uses it when you're around, but knowing most 10 yearolds she will learn it soon enough.....
Just keep changing it when she's not around

That said I never supervised my daughters' websurfing and I'm sure they've seen objectionable things, but I don't believe it has done them lasting harm.
Things that children can't intellectually or emotionally understand/relate to they tend to ignore. That's just an empirical observation though as fatherhood is a lifetime job (did anyone say "Taxi"? ).

Theres been a lot of debate about this for years and no clear consensus exists. As usual it's down to the parent and the individual child concerned.

Read this comment on another website and thought of your post.

"to protect your home network, and limit access to inappropriate content check out a service called OpenDNS (I think that website is http://opendns.com). The basic service is free and you simply configure your router to use the DNS servers provided by OpenDNS instead of your ISP’s name servers. Then configure access restrictions appropriate to your home using the dashboard at the OpenDNS website. For example, you can block all gambling and porn sites, and chatroulette."
Comment by Robert on Revolutionary: iPads are for Places, not People


What you would need to do is change your DNS settings on your router to use their service. And also check their forums using search to find any iPad threads.
Hope it's of some help.

Thx for all your help

I have the same trouble with Emma

You have two options.

#1 get a wireless router that supports some type of website parental controls.(most do these days). That should take care of a lot of the bad websites.

#2 iPad has built in options for setting parental controls
Got to settings > General > Restrictions.

You can turn safari access off completly in this section as well as restrict the allowed music and age restricted apps that can be downloaded or installed.

I am in favor of opendns. It works well. I installed it at a local after school program. Very hard to circumvent and it was very good without a lot of mistaken categories. The control is also pretty fine tuned. Last I looked there were 26 different categories that can be blocked.

Originally Posted by princessangry

peh. that don't work against 10 year old.

You put the control on the router it is pretty hard to break unless the parent is dumb enough to give the 10 year old the password. OpenDNS uses DNS filtering. So the filtering is not local.

As for me, I prefer to use ActyMac DutyWatch. DutyWatch is a computer monitoring and recording program that is capable of capturing every program used, every website visited, every keystroke made, even every instant message chat.
DutyWatch