Whether it's summer vacation or the weekend, children often spend a lot of time on electronics. With today's technology devices can range from the household family computer, a personal laptop, tablet, smart phone, or gaming system. If left to their own devices, they could end up seeing some pretty inappropriate things.
So how will you keep them from seeing something they shouldn’t see? Parental controls for your home network are the answer.
Through Your Router
This is the easiest and efficient way to configure parental controls. Your router serves as an entry point for all internet traffic. By setting up web filtering here, you’ll be able to control what your child sees not just on a computer, but any device they may use including laptops, tablets or smart phones. Some routers come with parental controls that are already built in. Usually it’s shown on the box and explained thoroughly in a manual if the feature is available.
We recommend Netgear Routers which includes an app used on your smart phone for management.
Windows 7
Microsoft Operating Systems include built-in controls that will allow you to control when your child logs in and what types of programs your child can access. It’s really helpful if your children use different accounts than you do. If they aren't using a different account we strongly recommend they do. In many cases allowing a child to have Administrative Rights to your PC can be dangerous as it allows them to install applications on the computer making it vulnerable to computer threats like viruses and malware. By creating a Standard Account for your child to use, parents can monitor when your child attempts to make changes to the PC by requiring an Administrative Password. Remember a password only works if your children don't know it. So keep the password memorized.
These built-in controls are useful, but it don't include web filtering. To make up for this, Microsoft does offer Family Safety, a program that can let you set up web filtering through Windows 7.
More Information Can be Found Here
Windows 8 and 10
Both Windows 8 and 10 have integrated parental controls so that Window 7’s time limits are combined with web filtering from the Family Safety program to give you all the power you need, plus new features.
3rd Party Programs
There are programs of this type that you can pay for, such as the Net Nanny that everyone is familiar with, but you don’t have to pay to protect your children. The web is full of free web filtering options. If the options mentioned above don't fit your need here is a list of alternatives.
Conclusion
Hopefully this guide has helped you better understand how to implement parental controls. If it’s a bit too much and you’re still confused, it’s okay. We can come by and do it for you, it’s not a problem at all.