Cybersentinel - add your feedback here and have the chance to win an 8 gig iPod Touch

[carriemumsnet]

Thanks to everyone who has volunteered to be part of the CyberSentinel product trial. Hopefully you've now downloaded their free software and have had a play with the product.
This thread is for your feedback - please answer the questions below and add any additional comments and questions. Everyone who adds feedback here will be entered into a prize draw to win an 8gig iPod Touch

CyberSentinel are also hosting an an e-safety event in London on 9th June. Professor Tanya Byron is the key speaker and Anna Richardson is going to host the day. They are looking for a mum to talk about their experiences on e-safety and children at this event. There will be media present as well as approximately 100 guests, mainly Local Authority representatives from across the U.K. They are also looking for folks to to act as media case studies. If you're interested in either of these opportunities please email [email protected].
And now here are the questions....

1. How easy was it to install? Very, quite, not very, not at all easy - if not easy, please say what happened
2. Once installed, was it simple to use or complicated?
3. Did you use the web console to see a summary of your children?s web activity? If so, how do you find this?
4. Did you customise the word library to monitor for the use of your own words (such as your child?s mobile phone number or school name)? Was this easy?
5. Did you learn anything new about what your children do online? If so, what (say in general terms)
6. Do you think CyberSentinel helped you keep your children safe online? What was the best aspect of this?
7. You currently have a free licence to use this product for one year - once that year is up do you think you would purchase this product? The cost is £25
8. Any other comments/ questions.....

Thanks

MNHQ

1. Installation - fine I think.
2. Fairly simple to use, but could be better. However, I wish it had told me that the full-screen warning would come on automatically, despite advising me to do nothing for a week and just monitor the situation. Luckily, I tested one daughter's login and got the flash screen immediately, so I investigated and disabled it. I think this should be disabled by default and more clearly flagged/explained upfront - also it should be highlighted more clearly that it needs to be sorted for each child's profile.
3. Yes, looked at the activity, but a bit hard to decipher sometimes as I couldn't work out what the URLs always refered to.
4. Yes, but the default is too much. Why is 'Princess' in there as a word when this is aimed at children? And why does it respond simply to clicking on the Start menu button? My daughter has a Barbie Princess Bride program which she uses frequently, so evey time I (when trying it out) clicked on the Start menu I got the fullscreen flash warning - took me ages to work out why as I couldn't run upstairs to check my emails every time!
5. Learned about them sneaking onto the computer when I hadn't authorised it - they have to ask in our house.
6. Possibly, though it's tough as even general sites (Google) can have links to 'gay dating' or news headlines about subjects with the "wrong" words in them, so if you enable the flash screen it can be a bit over the top.
7. Don't know yet.
8. I would like to be able to easily specific "safe" sites for my children (individually, according to child/age etc) to go on, or safe sub-domains of sites, such as parts of the BBC, where all the s/w wuold pick up is inappropriate words that my child may enter, not words that site happens to display onscreen (eg gay, freak - which can refer to weather!). And the full-screen warning is too much - a proper pop-up dialogue box would be better and more child-friendly.

Hi
Only been using it for a week so still new.
1)It was very easy to download, but I found subsequently a bit tricky to initally find the web console to check the report.
2)I have only installed it on the laptop that is shared between my 2 boys and myself, I found the facility to limit time usage very useful.
3)The only problem was that my children did not have user profiles to begin with and some of the games they play on could not be transferred to the new user profile at the stage they was at so I have found out my oldest was accessing my user instead.
4) It seems to pick up on letters like "FU""FO"as I keep getting captures for my usage on perfectly acceptable sites ie mail order which have these codes. Which seems a little irritating-I will have to see if this continues before adding them to the word library.
Too early to comment further as my children have not used the computer for very long to get an accurate assessment of their activities will post further.

1. How easy was it to install? Very, quite, not very, not at all easy - if not easy, please say what happened
   Very easy to install

2. Once installed, was it simple to use or complicated?
   Very easy to use, intuitional

3. Did you use the web console to see a summary of your children?s web activity? If so, how do you find this?
   Yes, it's great

4. Did you customise the word library to monitor for the use of your own words (such as your child?s mobile phone number or school name)? Was this easy?
   Didn't customise, had no time for this, kids spent too little time on the computer

5. Did you learn anything new about what your children do online? If so, what (say in general terms)
   No, I always know what my children do online

6. Do you think CyberSentinel helped you keep your children safe online? What was the best aspect of this?
   To early to comment that

7. You currently have a free licence to use this product for one year - once that year is up do you think you would purchase this product? The cost is £25
   Don't know yet

8. Any other comments/ questions.....
   Not at the moment, maybe later

1. Very easy to install, but not great afterwards
2. Although I have set up the user profiles, it automatically defaults to mine - and it's driving me mad!
3. No - web console doesn't seem to pick up other user profiles except mine - so it's basically useless!
4. Tried to, but the fact that we use 3 different languages on out computer completely fazes it!
5. No
6. No - it's just made me really frustrated!
7. Am just about to uninstall it - it doesn't react well to the fact that we use Firefox as a browser at home, it's too fiddly to change between user profiles, it doesn't like the fact that we use 3 different languages, and it flashes up at the slightest thing!
8. Any other comments/ questions..... Not a great success from my point of view ...

1. How easy was it to install?

Very easily installed onto two computers, and to have them working together, from my main computer.

2. Once installed, was it simple to use or complicated?

Once I read the manual it was fine. I think it needs to be more explicit how to make the think invisible on your computer so you don't get annoyed with the warning screen all the time. I nearly gave up with it.

3. Did you use the web console to see a summary of your children?s web activity? If so, how do you find this?

Yes. Worked very well but it is so sensitive and flags up every other page almost! It is just OTT at the moment I think.

4. Did you customise the word library to monitor for the use of your own words (such as your child?s mobile phone number or school name)? Was this easy?

No, not tried this yet but I can imagine for an older child barring things like your address and tel number is a good idea. DD is too young to worry about this yet.

5. Did you learn anything new about what your children do online? If so, what (say in general terms)

No. My daughter is only 7y and her internet use is pretty much supervised anyway, so I already knew what she was using and when.

6. Do you think CyberSentinel helped you keep your children safe online? What was the best aspect of this?

See (5) I imagine it would be more suited to those with older children and teenagers who were likely to have machines outside of family rooms, such as int heir bedroom. Or those using faster opace chat applicatins such as MSN.

7. You currently have a free licence to use this product for one year - once that year is up do you think you would purchase this product? The cost is £25

Not yet. Maybe I will reconsider when DD is older.

1. How easy was it to install? Very, quite, not very, not at all easy - if not easy, please say what happened
   It was very easy.

2. Once installed, was it simple to use or complicated?
   Once I had worked out how to 'hide' it on dd's computer, found everything else easy.

3. Did you use the web console to see a summary of your children?s web activity? If so, how do you find this?
   Yes, very easy.

4. Did you customise the word library to monitor for the use of your own words (such as your child?s mobile phone number or school name)? Was this easy?
   Yes, it's easy. Didn't make any changes at first - it takes a while to work out what you are looking for, but gradually you work out what it is you want to spot.

5. Did you learn anything new about what your children do online? If so, what (say in general terms)
   She knows how to (illegally) download music and videos!

6. Do you think CyberSentinel helped you keep your children safe online? What was the best aspect of this?
   Monitoring 'chat' is the most useful thing for me.

7. You currently have a free licence to use this product for one year - once that year is up do you think you would purchase this product? The cost is £25
   Yes, that seems like very good value.

8. Any other comments/ questions.....
   None really! Need to spend a bit more time 'fine-tuning' what I'm looking for on there, but so far it all seems to work really well.

Just reading through what others have said - we too use Firefox, haven't had any problems.

Oh, and I like the way I can set the internet to be disabled after a certain time of night to prevent dd spending all night on her laptop under the covers!

1. How easy was it to install?

It was very easy, but once you've done the restart it opened up IE which I loathe and don't use, rather than my default browser (have mentioned this on the other thread).

2. Once installed, was it simple to use or complicated?

It's simple to use

3. Did you use the web console to see a summary of your children?s web activity? If so, how do you find this?

Yes I used the web console every day to have a look at what was going on, though my m/c is not password protected so I was checking my stuff too. I did find that my dd's friend had searched for penis in google images!

4. Did you customise the word library to monitor for the use of your own words (such as your child?s mobile phone number or school name)? Was this easy?

Yes I did and yes it was easy

5. Did you learn anything new about what your children do online? If so, what (say in general terms)

No I didn't. To be honest, I know what times my dd (or her friends!) are using the m/c between, and can check my History to see what they're up to, but CS was fun, and did interrupt things so made them think (and now dd's friend knows I know what they do, she's being more sensible). DD also thinks I'm magic because I can tell her what she's been doing! Thank you CS!

6. Do you think CyberSentinel helped you keep your children safe online? What was the best aspect of this?

Definitely the best bit is dd thinking I'm magic!

7. You currently have a free licence to use this product for one year - once that year is up do you think you would purchase this product? The cost is £25

Depends upon our financial circumstances, but if we're still OK as we are now, then yes.

8. Any other comments/ questions.....

It is terribly sensitive and jumps up and down at almost anything. On the whole I've found it quite fun to try to work out what it's objecting to (the Start Menu? Harriet Harman on youtube (well I don't blame it for that)?) but I can imagine that if you're trying to do some serious work it would be very annoying. I think it's worth it at the moment as it will remind dd that I am watching her like Big Brother!

WRT the reports, I would like times shown against entries if poss. and I'd like a 'today' button on the dates as well.

On the whole I like it, and expect it to come into it's own when dd reaches about 13 or when my godson comes to stay again (he was very naughty).

1. How easy was it to install? Very, quite, not very, not at all easy - if not easy, please say what happened It was easy to install but like someone else noted that it opened up Internet Explorer, although since then it does work on Firefox.
2. Once installed, was it simple to use or complicated? It is simple to use but can be very fierce. I never realized our CD collection was so dodgy - Kate Bush?
3. Did you use the web console to see a summary of your children?s web activity? If so, how do you find this? I have tried but it is not yet picking up what they are viewing most although I do know.
4. Did you customise the word library to monitor for the use of your own words (such as your child?s mobile phone number or school name)? Was this easy? It is easy but only trying to reduce the bizarre pornographic captures of Kate Bush
5. Did you learn anything new about what your children do online? If so, what (say in general terms) Not yet but it has only been installed for a week
6. Do you think CyberSentinel helped you keep your children safe online? What was the best aspect of this? We will wait and see
7. You currently have a free licence to use this product for one year - once that year is up do you think you would purchase this product? The cost is £25 Too early to tell
8. Any other comments/ questions.....

I've just realised exactly what I want CS to do:

When I boot up and we get the Agree option, I want to log in there, so CS knows whether to use the rules for me or for dd. When I stop using the m/c and dd starts I want to click (r or l) on the icon in the task bar and switch identity.

1. How easy was it to install? Very, quite, not very, not at all easy - if not easy, please say what happened

Fairly easy to install.

2. Once installed, was it simple to use or complicated?

I bookmarked CS so I could have a peek without waiting for the 'alert', so yes, easy.

3. Did you use the web console to see a summary of your children?s web activity? If so, how do you find this?

I set it to email me after 30 captures, but it is so sensitive, I had 2 emails a day! As someone else said, why does it flag princess? Also bored and pee (which wasnt even on the screen, the word was pua (pure - msn talk))

4. Did you customise the word library to monitor for the use of your own words (such as your child?s mobile phone number or school name)? Was this easy?

I set it for DS1 mobile number, and our address, but it didnt flag it, only found he had given address out because it flagged when his friend said fuck! I also emailed myself his phone number and it didnt flag that either.

5. Did you learn anything new about what your children do online? If so, what (say in general terms)

Yes, I learned he had a girlfriend

6. Do you think CyberSentinel helped you keep your children safe online? What was the best aspect of this?

I think he is pretty sensible anyway, and I knew most of what he was doing, but giving out numbers/addresses on msn was not flagged, so no, I dont think CS has helped keep him safe.

7. You currently have a free licence to use this product for one year - once that year is up do you think you would purchase this product? The cost is £25

Not unless I can configure it into being less sensitive, but letting me know if he's in danger.

8. Any other comments/ questions.....

The warning screen was a PITA, had to disable it after 10 mins, it's also a pain getting loads of emails of msn chat, flagging words that are totally innocent or not even there.

1. How easy was it to install? Very, quite, not very, not at all easy - if not easy, please say what happened

It was easy to install but I had problems with msn so deactivated the chat function and that seemed to help

2. Once installed, was it simple to use or complicated?

It was easy to use

3. Did you use the web console to see a summary of your children?s web activity? If so, how do you find this?
   It didn't seem to show a huge amount of web acivity

4. Did you customise the word library to monitor for the use of your own words (such as your child?s mobile phone number or school name)? Was this easy?

ds only seems to like playing games so wasn't worried about the word library

5. Did you learn anything new about what your children do online? If so, what (say in general terms)

not yet but I imagine when they get older it would.

6. Do you think CyberSentinel helped you keep your children safe online? What was the best aspect of this?

I think it would help keep children safe online but again I think ds is a little too young to worry about that just now

7. You currently have a free licence to use this product for one year - once that year is up do you think you would purchase this product? The cost is £25

I think maybe in a few years time if finances allowed

8. Any other comments/ questions.....

1. How easy was it to install? Very, quite, not very, not at all easy - if not easy, please say what happened

very easy to install and no problems that i have noticed on either computer since installation!

2. Once installed, was it simple to use or complicated?

I think you do have to spend a little time configuring the system to your specification but would have expected this anyway,

3. Did you use the web console to see a summary of your children?s web activity? If so, how do you find this?

i find this one of the best features. I feel like 'big brother' and it certainly adds to peace of mind.

4. Did you customise the word library to monitor for the use of your own words (such as your child?s mobile phone number or school name)? Was this easy?

i have set certain key words to be monitered and it was easy to set up.

5. Did you learn anything new about what your children do online? If so, what (say in general terms) no, laptop is only used when i am in the room anyway so i do generally know what they are using via internet!

6. Do you think CyberSentinel helped you keep your children safe online? What was the best aspect of this?

I think cybersentinel adds a level of security and confidence that means i dont have to watch 100% of the time leaving me free to go to the kitchen etc

7. You currently have a free licence to use this product for one year - once that year is up do you think you would purchase this product? The cost is £25

I think i would consider purchasing again.

8. Any other comments/ questions..... none

1. How easy was it to install? Very, quite, not very, not at all easy - if not easy, please say what happened

esay enough

2. Once installed, was it simple to use or complicated?

not complicated but a bit time consuming. i think the initial warning should be default invisible tho'

3. Did you use the web console to see a summary of your children?s web activity? If so, how do you find this?
   i like it but have turned all but one of cos there were 2 many captures

4. Did you customise the word library to monitor for the use of your own words (such as your child?s mobile phone number or school name)? Was this easy?
   yes, i added a couple and they were flaagged. am going to add phone numbers too and see if it works.

5. Did you learn anything new about what your children do online? If so, what (say in general terms)
   no. if anyhting i learnt that at the minute i can stop worrying. but i still can't get it to log MSN; it jsut says there rae no chat logs when i know she has been on for ages

6. Do you think CyberSentinel helped you keep your children safe online? What was the best aspect of this?
   it could do but hasn't yet

7. You currently have a free licence to use this product for one year - once that year is up do you think you would purchase this product? The cost is £25

definiatly. i think £25 pa is an ok ammount for peace of mind

8. Any other comments/ questions.....

couple of things i would like--

• an option to flag a warning when only the words chosen by you are used. so for eg...only when they are typing their phone number
• a time limit; differnt to windows parental controls whrere you can specify the times you allow them to use the PC - i would like to allocate them an hour per day for instance and when they ahve used it up they are logged off.

• i would like to be able to delete the web logs

• i would like an option to delet all web captures not jsut 4 at a time cos it drives me nuts when they are 66 captures!

thnak you

gill89, you can set the times they are allowed on by going to settings > users > edit > time management.
HTH

would also be good if you could see more than 4 screen captures at a time. its a pain when you have over 50 screen captures and have to delete them 4 at a time!

I agree on that point Bonkerz.

thanks betty- i have done it now.

yes BONKERZ a delete all button would be lovely

1. How easy was it to install? Very, quite, not very, not at all easy - if not easy, please say what happened

Very easy to install.

2. Once installed, was it simple to use or complicated?

Very simple to use.

3. Did you use the web console to see a summary of your children?s web activity? If so, how do you find this?

Yes, used it, it was clear, understandable and interesting.

4. Did you customise the word library to monitor for the use of your own words (such as your child?s mobile phone number or school name)? Was this easy?

Did not customise it.

5. Did you learn anything new about what your children do online? If so, what (say in general terms)

Did not learn anything new about the children's online activity.

6. Do you think CyberSentinel helped you keep your children safe online? What was the best aspect of this?

It can be used to keep the children safe online, although my own children are very aware of potential dangers anyway.

7. You currently have a free licence to use this product for one year - once that year is up do you think you would purchase this product? The cost is £25

No, I would not purchase it.

8. Any other comments/ questions.....

My family found it very annoying, as the warning seemed to pop up without them being aware of why. They are teenagers, so might find the warning pops up when chatting on msn or fb, so it might not be them using inappropriate language, but maybe a friend they are chatting to.

1. How easy was it to install? Very, quite, not very, not at all easy - if not easy, please say what happened

Very easy and easy to install on other computers too

2. Once installed, was it simple to use or complicated?

Yes it was very easy, the only thing I found a bit tricky was that when I selected it to be hidden on my screen it hid the icon in the task bar so I had to use the link in my email to find the site again as I hadn't bookmarked it.

3. Did you use the web console to see a summary of your children?s web activity? If so, how do you find this?

This was very interesting although as other have said the word filter is sometimes a bit OTT

4. Did you customise the word library to monitor for the use of your own words (such as your child?s mobile phone number or school name)? Was this easy?

Yes I have put phone numbers and address in. I think I will put some in the allow box later as some of the ones it picks up I think are unneccesary

5. Did you learn anything new about what your children do online? If so, what (say in general terms)

Not yet but then so far I have only installed it on the downstairs PCs. I'm sure it will be a bit of an eye opener when I put it on my 15year old daughters computer and my 13 year old sons laptop!

6. Do you think CyberSentinel helped you keep your children safe online? What was the best aspect of this?

Its nice to know what they are doing and which sites they are visiting. I think the time limit feature is excellent as we used to have to switch the computers off at the mains to stop internet access late at night.

7. You currently have a free licence to use this product for one year - once that year is up do you think you would purchase this product? The cost is £25

Actually I might, it seem alot easier to use and change the setting than other programs we have tried. Too early to say for definate yet though.

8. Any other comments/ questions.....

agree with the others about the amount of web captures per page and the ability to delete them. Also alot of them seem to be exactly the same page.

1. How easy was it to install? Very, quite, not very, not at all easy - if not easy, please say what happened

Ok to install but had problem with computer shortly after - may or may not have been related. Once we removed CS it it was ok again though.

2. Once installed, was it simple to use or complicated?
   Straightforward enough.

3. Did you use the web console to see a summary of your children?s web activity? If so, how do you find this?
   It was exactly as I anticipated it would be.

4. Did you customise the word library to monitor for the use of your own words (such as your child?s mobile phone number or school name)? Was this easy?

Didn't customise.

5. Did you learn anything new about what your children do online? If so, what (say in general terms)
   No surprises.

6. Do you think CyberSentinel helped you keep your children safe online? What was the best aspect of this?

Not really, prefer to keep my own eye on them and a conversation going as to what they are doing.

7. You currently have a free licence to use this product for one year - once that year is up do you think you would purchase this product? The cost is £25

No wouldn't bother,

8. Any other comments/ questions.....

I think watching the kids furtively is all well and good but it's much better to build a relationship whereby you trust each other.
I prefer to check on the kids regularly and talk to them about what sites they are using. I think a dialogue is better than the spying aspect.

Hi,

1. How easy was it to install? Very, quite, not very, not at all easy - if not easy, please say what happened
   Very straightforward - no problem at all.

2. Once installed, was it simple to use or complicated?
   It took a bit of figuring out - not as intuitive as I expected (I never feel I have the time to read a manual).

3. Did you use the web console to see a summary of your children?s web activity? If so, how do you find this?
   Yes I did - I first created a separate user account on my Windows laptop for him. I couldn't make sense of how else to do it (within Cybersentinel).

4. Did you customise the word library to monitor for the use of your own words (such as your child?s mobile phone number or school name)? Was this easy?
   That's a great idea! Didn't think of it, to be honest.

5. Did you learn anything new about what your children do online? If so, what (say in general terms)
   Not really - nothing juicy, at least!

6. Do you think CyberSentinel helped you keep your children safe online? What was the best aspect of this?
   I think that, given more time to fiddle with the settings, it could be more useful. Certainly has potential.
   I like the feature allowing you to restrict websites and internet times - although it's not necessary for me to go that far yet.

7. You currently have a free licence to use this product for one year - once that year is up do you think you would purchase this product? The cost is £25
   I'd feel better about it if my concerns below could be addressed. Given more time to get used to the software and customise it to suit my family, I might find myself starting to rely on it more and more!

8. Any other comments/ questions.....
   There are a few niggles ...

1. Biggest gripe: It isn't able to screen YouTube content. It does pick up banned words in the text surrounding a particular video, but can't pick up any swear words or inappropriate content in the videos itself (not ever sure this is technically possible). For my child, YouTube is the biggest problem at the moment, as searches for seemingly innocuous words can often come back with quite hair-raising content. What is good, though, as that with this software I can restrict access to YouTube to times when I'm at home, or ban it outright.

1. For some reason I couldn't get into Gmail's photo section (for web albums you can upload from Picasa) while working in my child's account on my laptop. This was very frustrating as I wanted to download our dog's pictures from my web album to my child's account. I suspect it may have something to do with pop-ups (it happened when clicking on the 'Photos' link at the top of Gmail).

1. The word list needs to be fully customisable. By this I mean that I want to be able to go through the built-in word lists and add or remove words by ticking appropriate boxes. It is possible to add or remove words, but you never get to see what words are already in the list. This is a pain, as the software then screen captures content that you feel is actually okay for your child. It's a big waste of time to then have to look at all these screen captures to find out what the fuss is about! It may be a good idea to have word lists for different age groups.

1. More on word lists: the software makers could do better to take a leaf from Google's book and do context checking on words. Have just looked at the latest group of screen captures, and pages from a model train website were among them. The word caught was 'naked'. But the context was "... with water being heated by a naked flame, not by electricity ..." Makes me wonder how well the software is making use of context-sensitive searching ... Overall, I think this feature is far too sensitive, giving so many false positives I am tempted to just give up looking at the screen captures.

PS: I was shocked to find a bunch of screen captures of Facebook pages (of complete stranges!) taken on Saturday night - until I remembered that was the night we had our babysitter!

1. How easy was it to install? Very, quite, not very, not at all easy - if not easy, please say what happened

It was very easy to install

2. Once installed, was it simple to use or complicated?
   It was easy to use but the flash screen that came up on start up was very annoying and it took a little while to find where to disable this.

3. Did you use the web console to see a summary of your children?s web activity? If so, how do you find this?

Yes, it was good to see what he had been using

4. Did you customise the word library to monitor for the use of your own words (such as your child?s mobile phone number or school name)? Was this easy?
   No, not got round to this yet. My son has not got a mobile or email yet, hes too young

5. Did you learn anything new about what your children do online? If so, what (say in general terms)
   No, I was generally aware of the websites he uses

6. Do you think CyberSentinel helped you keep your children safe online? What was the best aspect of this?
   Its good to be able to block sites and have a list of whats been used

7. You currently have a free licence to use this product for one year - once that year is up do you think you would purchase this product? The cost is £25
   Not sure yet

8. Any other comments/ questions.....
   The full pop up screen was very annoying

Can I have a chance to win if I say why I'm using a competitors product?

1. First month is free, so time to investigate and see if I need it. Still free after that if I don't mind an icon being visible (which I don't want). It offers a six month option for 20 pounds and lifetime for 80 pounds which allow extra options. That covers more than one computer.

1. Has the backing of an American government security agency so I feel that the information is in safe hands. Quite concerned about using any other company given the sensitive nature of the information they may hold.

1. Option to have different levels of monitoring for different log in details.

1. I have learnt a great deal and now feel a bit happier they are using the net safely. I can try to use the alert system to notify any suggestion that they might meet up with anyone dodgy.

1. Alert systems don't work well for teenagers as they are adept at using abbreviations or slang to get around them. The package I am using records activity for 90 days (if you pay) so I can let them go unmonitored and only check up if there is something that is worrying about their behaviour - or if they disappeared to meet a dodgy person!

I am loveing this product right now! Have realised i can use it for my DH's laptop too and have set his internet to go off at half ten!!!!!! fantastic we both actually sat and talked last night for first time in ages! I reckon this product could help save our marriage!!!