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Child Saftey Filter?

Flyinace2000

Flyinace2000

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
I do computer work on the side and one of my "cleints" just ordered a iMac (17") for his daughter who is about 6 or 7. He wants me to set it up so she can not get to innapropriate matterial. What softwar is available? I am retty proficient with OSX is there a free tool built in that i have missed or is there a retai consumer product?
 
There was Kidsafe, which was a list of approved sites, but that went defunct. Now you'd want to look for the Mac versions of software like surfwatch and netnanny. But seriously, his kid already knows 100x more about sex than he thinks, tell him to stop being so damned paranoid-- the filter is more likely to interfere with a school project than actually protect her from a porn site just carting her off. When's the last time you *accidentally* visited such a site? Of course never. Spam is about the only problem here, but Mail.app or just about any of the others should filter that out, so relax.

paul
 
Probably the best way to protect the kid from looking at bad stuff on the internet is for a parent to be there when the kid is on the computer.
 
AliensAreFuzzy said:
Probably the best way to protect the kid from looking at bad stuff on the internet is for a parent to be there when the kid is on the computer.
Click to expand...

i agree. put the computer in a family room instead of her bedroom. That's an easy tip that most people ignore.

Let's look at pro's and con's of filtering software here...

Con: Web filtering software does nothing against spam, which is where a kid would be most likely to see porn. You'll want a good modern mail program for that, and personally Mail has worked great for me.

Con: Filtering software only blocks some sites. Many aren't blacklisted, or are designed to evade the filters. So it offers you no solid peace-of-mind.

Con: Filters block a lot of good material-- Perhaps a breast cancer survivor's website, or information about puberty, and sometimes sites that have absolutely no connection with health-related issues. Filters are regularly criticized for blocking even government health sites.

Pro: Parent can feel good thinking they've done their job, oblivious to the above points, because they're not tech-savvy enough to know better.

A couple of years ago, there was a contest called Foil The Filters, demonstrating the problem. An example:

"Our grand prize was awarded to a high school student who was prevented from accessing his own high school's web site, from his own high school's library apparently because his high school had adopted filtering software which blocked all questionable material, and this unfortunately included the word 'high' ... "And this illustrates the problems with filtering software...The problem is that filtering software can block some really innocuous and useful stuff. But this is material that's being blocked so that children and other people can't access it."
Click to expand...

paul
 
The posters who have said that actually monitoring the kid's internet access is best are correct, however, that's not always an option, and not what the original poster asked for.

My reccomendations:

For actively filtering content, try Kids GoGoGo ( http://www.makienterprise.com/kggg/kidsgogogo.html ). It's pretty good and reasonably priced ($30, daily database updates are $24/year), although I want to shoot the person who came up with the name.

Alternatively, and this is often a better option if there's a discipline problem, you can install monitoring software like GURL Watcher ( http://www.quicomm.com/gw_overview.html ) and manually monitor the kid's browsing. It's optional filtering ability is limited (keyword-based), but it gives the parent an opportunity to manually identify inappropriate content (which is generally more effective than electronic filters) and discuss it with the child. And, face it, even with a filter, the kid will eventually come across some questionable material. (Cost is $19.95).

Ultimately, any setup will be a tradeoff between how effective it is and how much time and effort the parents are willing to put into it. But I would assume that a 7-year-old would not be actively looking for porn.
 
coolsoldier said:
The posters who have said that actually monitoring the kid's internet access is best are correct, however, that's not always an option, and not what the original poster asked for.

My reccomendations:

For actively filtering content, try Kids GoGoGo ( http://www.makienterprise.com/kggg/kidsgogogo.html ). It's pretty good and reasonably priced ($30, daily database updates are $24/year), although I want to shoot the person who came up with the name.

Alternatively, and this is often a better option if there's a discipline problem, you can install monitoring software like GURL Watcher ( http://www.quicomm.com/gw_overview.html ) and manually monitor the kid's browsing. It's optional filtering ability is limited (keyword-based), but it gives the parent an opportunity to manually identify inappropriate content (which is generally more effective than electronic filters) and discuss it with the child. And, face it, even with a filter, the kid will eventually come across some questionable material. (Cost is $19.95).

Ultimately, any setup will be a tradeoff between how effective it is and how much time and effort the parents are willing to put into it. But I would assume that a 7-year-old would not be actively looking for porn.
Click to expand...

I agree with many of you about the computer in a public place. But the idea is to get his daughters off the main home PC (windows) so they stop breaking it and he does not have to call me every 3 weeks to fix it (At 50 bucks an hour....college kids gotta eat too). So i told him about the new iMac. The computer will be going in the kids room.

I will look into those two peices of software. Thanks!
 
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