Parental control software - what do you use?

[Jane38]

My 9-year-old and 6-year-old use the internet for school projects but I'm worried about unsuitable sites coming up on searches, as the inbuilt filter seems to be lousy. Do you use any software to restrict what is viewable? And is there any good free softeware that can be downloaded for this? Any help appreciated, especially as I am vey un-techy!

We've got McAfee but I think it came as part of the package with the computer (I've leased it under the Government home computer initiative for local govt. employees).
I'm totally untechy too - I bet you'll have a friend whose dh is a computer nerd & will love to advise you.
My main piece of advice is chat to the kids about not putting in any naughty words as bad things can pop up and if something does appear (Such as 'click on this button for a really loud fart - go on, you know you want to!') then they must NEVER do it.
Position the computer so that it's somewhere that isn't hidden away - there's no better 'protection' than knowing that mum or dad might be peeping over your shoulder at any moment!

We have Norton. It seems to work pretty well in protecting me from things I don't want to see (and preventing me from buying virtual underwear) though the naked David Beckham in Google Images made it through the filter. I agree with fortyplus about making sure your children know not to type rude words into Google.

Thanks for advice. Definitely do need to talk to them about rude words. The trouble is when innocuous words bring up dodgy sites. I remember once typing in 'boys haircuts' because I wanted to improve the quality of my usually useless hacking at their hair - a whole list of homoerotic sites came up. And last week the little one typed in 'dirty kit' as his beloved footy kit was covered with mud and he thought we'd need some special technique to clean it. You can guess how many thousands of dodgy hits we got. Luckily, I was there and could prevent any clicking on anything.

I had worried that DS1 would be seen by his friends as mollycoddled because we have parental controls (though they're about as much to protect the adults in the house from things we don't want to see). Interestingly, one of his friends has none and is quite envious of DS1 for being able to play around on the internet without running into dodgy sites - friend has been quite upset by some of the things he's found (he hasn't described anything too awful, just a bit rude rather than porn iyswim).

I thought I'd do an experiment to see how well the filter works - I've just googled on boys' haircuts, and got boys' haircuts. So Norton does work.

Try typing 'golden showers' which is a particular variety of rose i was looking for!

Oh dear, I'm afraid that does come out rather rude even with Norton, as did one or two of the items on my "dirty kit" page. Are you sure it's a suitable rose for a garden your LOs will use, fortyplus .

(I dread to think what you'd get for Tipsy Imperial Concubine - my favourite rose name! I'm not even attempting that one.)

Hi, there's a piece of software called CyberPatrol which, I've heard from other parents, is very good. It allows you to block web addresses, monitor usage etc.
We use a mac which has inbuilt internet & email safety nets and found it to be brilliant.

Hth

HallgerdaLongcloak I gave Golden Showers a miss - just didn't seem the same once I'd seen the pics!