Parental control software is a tool that will allow parents to control the activities of their kids online, from blocking malicious or inappropriate URLs to monitoring the internet activities of their kids. Hence, having parental control software is a must-have for every household to prevent children from accessing adult sites or any other inappropriate sites. Fortunately, free parental software can be downloaded online at your convenience. One of the following 5 Free Parental Control Programs for Windows should satisfy your needs.
1. Norton Safety Minder
Norton Safety Minder is a part of Norton online family which can filter and monitor social networking, web surfing, email, instant messaging and contacts. It also allows multiple user accounts. Like most common features of parental control, it also sends email alerts everytime your child go beyond any monitoring limits. This also has an app for iPhone, iPad and Android OS that will monitor kids online and smartphone activities.
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- Pros: allows multiple accounts, feature-packed, settings are stored in your account
- Cons: unblocking pages can be time consuming, can sometimes block sites that are not really “harmful”,
- OS: Windows 8 32-bit and 64-bit, Windows XP to Windows 7, iPhone, iPad, iOS, Android OS
2. Junior Watch
Junior Watch is designed for your kids safety as it will consistently report locations, screen and webcam shots and even key strokes from the computer. Basically, it will monitor every action of your children in the computer. It also includes blocking of inappropriate sites, monitoring of browsing history and retrieving/deleting of file remotely.
- Our Rating:
- Download Junior Watch
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- Pros: provides many useful features such as screen capture, browser monitoring, and basically monitors child behaviour online. It also provides encryption for privacy
- Cons: only monitors one computer per user, sometimes slow to respond
- OS: Windows 7, Windows Vista, Windows XP
3. K9 Web Protection
K9 Web Protection is a simple to use program which primary aim is to filter web with safe searching capability. It is also flexible as it can block and unblock sites either temporarily or permanently. The menu is also password-protected and a Help section is available in case you encounter any problems.
- Our Rating:
- Download K9 Web Protection
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- Pros: simple and highly-customizable, logs every site that is accessed, great Help feature
- Cons: no printing of activity reports, only allow one profile setting in each pc, no controls on emails, games, social networking, etc.
- OS: Windows XP to Windows 7
4. Spyrix Free Keylogger
Spyrix Free Keylogger is a program that does its monitoring in the background. It will record a user’s activity in the computer. It will basically monitor a user activity in real time by clearly showing the web sites and programs that are being accessed as well as logging keystrokes and online activities for a specific user. This program is not only useful for parents but as well as employers or business that would like to monitor behavior or misbehavior of staff.
- Our Rating:
- Download Spyrix Free Keylogger
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- Pros: attractive user-interface, easy to use, Logs keystrokes, website data, and screenshots effectively
- Cons: no user-guide, no help available if you encounter difficulties/problems in setting up
- OS: Windows 2000/XP/2003/Vista/Server 2008/7/8
5. Windows Live Family Safety
Windows Live Family Safety is a program that works well with blocking sites and provides a list of kid-friendly websites that it allows. On the other hand, you are also able to customize the filters by adding websites that you want to allow or block. It also gives you the ability to setup various filters to different user profiles. Hence, you can allow browsing restrictions to your children while you can have access to everything online.
- Our Rating:
- Download Windows Live Family Safety
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- Pros: Professionally designed interface, customizable, effective filtering, can apply various filters to different window users,
- Cons: Doesn’t work very well with older Windows version and only works best with Windows 7
- OS: Windows 7, Windows Vista, Windows XP
