Set Up Parental Controls on Your Computer and Browsers

Are you worried about your kids misusing your Computer ? and Want to impose some restrictions on how they use the computer, when they use it and what programs they use ?

For instant Windows 7 has some excellent in-built parental controls under the control panel settings. Here is a tutorial on how to configure and use the parental controls in Windows 7 to the perfection to control your child’s activity on the computer. You must first set up another account

One of the more complex places to set parental controls is your computer. After all, it’s usually connected to everything, so even if you set basic settings in your OS, it’s not always going to restrict content online. Thankfully (for parents) browsers can also be set up with restrictions.

OS X: From the Apple Menu click System Preferences > Parental Controls. Here, you are able to either convert or create a new account with parental control settings. When parental controls are enabled, you can restrict access to websites by using the Automatic setting, which blocks adult internet content based on filters provided by The RTA and SafeSurf. These won’t be perfect, but it will at least keep you from having to set it all up manually. If you prefer, you can also set up a whitelist here, which means the user will only be able to access the sites you approve. You can also block specific applications, utilities, mail, chat, and set time limits for use.

Windows: Windows has some basic parental controls as well. By clicking Start > Control Panel > User Accounts and Family Safety > Set up parental controls for any user, you are able to set time limits, control access to certain games, and block certain programs. It doesn’t do much else, but if you want to control access to programs, it works by making them impossible to open when the settings are enabled. If you’re using Vista, you can find an automatic web filtering tool here as well, but it’s missing in Windows 7.

Browser Settings and Extensions

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Chrome: Chrome has a few great options for filtering web content in a variety of ways.StayFocused is technically a productivity extension, but since it can block websites and domains with a few simple clicks, you can set it up to restrict access for your kids.TinyFilter is an extension that filters out profanity and has a content filter for various types of web content people may find offensive. Both can be disabled temporarily if you want to check out an unfiltered web yourself.

Firefox: For parental control in Firefox you have two great add-ons that will do most of the work for you. FoxFilter blocks web content based on your criteria and specific words. You can set it block all of the content on a site, or just the words you define. Disabling it is as easy as typing in your preferred password. brOOzi takes a different approach, and instead only allows a child to visit sites the parent approves. Depending on the age of your child, either of these should do the trick.

Internet Explorer: Internet Explorer uses a browser based content filter available under the tools menu. Click Tools >Internet Options > Content, and then click the Enable tab under the Content Advisor menu. Here, you are able to filter for specific types of possibly offensive content like language, nudity, sex, and violence, or blacklist sites completely.

OpenDNS: If you prefer to just block as much internet content as humanly possible in one swoop, OpenDNS’s Parental Controls options might to the trick. OpenDNS will block content on the internet from any browser on any device as long as it’s connected to the router in your home. The setup process is very simple, but depends on the brand of router you’re using. It boils down to limiting your network access to the two OpenDNS addresses at the router level and all of the filtering happens there so all devices connected to the network are cut off from content. With this enabled, no computer, tablet, or phone connected to the router will be able to access mature content blocked by OpenDNS’s blacklist.

Deciding on how to filter content is going to depend on what your needs are. Blocking on a system or app based level may very well be enough, but if you want to go deeper, you now know the scope of your options.

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