Net Nanny or some such program, have any of you used one ?

[IndyMan]

I am considering adding internet to my 11yr olds PC. He enjoys going to a couple websites like Nic and descovery. He is unlikely to try to surf places I would not approve of, his friends I am not so sure of.

Have any of you tried any of these programs to limit site choices ? Were they effective ?

Thanks for any info you can toss my way.

[Dangit NotAChance]

you could use netnanny, but you might be better off just using the zones in IE or Firefox to block those sites you definatly know he should not go to. and if you have a firewall router like Netgear or dlink you can use their block feature there by key word.

So if you wanted to block websites with *Nude Girls* somewhere on it. you could put that in your keyword block filter. and those sites would not show up. going that route will save you the cost of the netnanny program.

[Pharcellus]

Not an easy problem to solve.

If your young 'un or any of his friends is computer savvy at all, filtering programs won't avail you much. Not only that, but they tend to be overzealous on the sites they block. That's not usually a problem at home because you can just unblock the site or turn off the filter under the notion of "better safe than sorry".

About the best way I know of to do it is to use an internet appliance with a securable, customized browser which lets you block all sites except for those on a special "include list" based on bookmarks/favorites, and has two levels of security, one password-protected which has full access so you can set the block list, the other not protected, but limited by the set constraints. Running it on a modified iOpener, for example, you can ensure that they can't install new browsers (has no floppy or CD-ROM), or get around OS security settings by using boot-time options.

If you put it on a Windows PC, you can be pretty much guaranteed that it will only stop the "honest kids".

[IndyMan]

thank you both for the reply, i will look into both options. he is (so far) trustworthy, we shall see what happens when his hormones kick in though. [:|]