Best Parental Control Service?

jannievanzyl

jannievanzyl

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Pretty much as per heading, what is the best system/service out there to provide parental protection on a range of devices; PC, MAC, Android, IOS, etc.

Googling pops up a number, but I'd prefer the real-world experience of the MyBB forumites. :)
 
I'm a spectre pro user, but ESET also comes with a bunch of advanced features and runs on Android, ios, Mac and windows although I do not use our ESET for this, but I know it can.

Otherwise have a look at Norton Family
 
jannievanzyl said:
Pretty much as per heading, what is the best system/service out there to provide parental protection on a range of devices; PC, MAC, Android, IOS, etc.

Googling pops up a number, but I'd prefer the real-world experience of the MyBB forumites. :)
Click to expand...

Active parenting and trust.
 
bwana said:
Active parenting and trust.
Click to expand...

I can see the value in using software like Net Nanny if you have very young children. Beyond the age of 10 or 11 though and yeah, good parenting is all you need. Why risk exposing toddlers and prepubescents to the darker side of the internet?
 
Running with a combination of Norton Family and Bitdefender Parental Advisor (incidental). Chose Norton Family for the YouTube video snippet feature.
 
Of course they will get access to evil stuff anyway, at friends and elsewhere. So the first guard is educating them on what and especially why the bad stuff is damaging.

Instead of trying to manage things at the client/end-point, rather add the gate at the entrance - that way you don't need to fiddle about trying to ensure the software is updated on each device. It gives you full control and it allows your kids and their friends to use any device on your network.

What I do at home is run a pfSense intelligent firewall/router that manages all traffic. It runs in a VM on an HP Microserver.

I have two WAN connections through two different ISPs (Afrihost and Vox), so two modems and two ADSL lines. Here is the status screen from my setup (personal info blanked):

attachment.php




For content control I use OpenDNS on each WAN connection. This provides the kind of granularity and centralised control I need to make my network safe. Here is a screen showing the kind of filtering you can do:

attachment.php
 
You could setup OpenDNS or FamilyShield DNS servers on your router. With open DNS you can configure the categories you want to block etc. With FamilyShield you cannot. This kind of setup will affect the whole network and you will probably need dynamic DNS service to make it work seamlessly.

For devices that you do not want to block you will have to setup specific DNS on the device itself to use other DNS servers, either your ISP or google etc. Can be a pain to maintain, and depending on the age and tech savvyness (if thats a word :) ) of the kids they could do the same to their devices rendering your OpenDNS useless.

If you have a relatively sophisticated router like a Mikrotik or a pfsense or similar, you could force specific devices to use the openDNS servers regardless of what DNS settings are set on the device.

So for example, on the my Mikrotik, you can specify an IP address list. So I create a list of IP's (statically assigned by DHCP server ) that I want to use OpenDNS. You then create a destination NAT rule for the whole address list and only those IP's use the OpenDNS servers. This makes it easy to control which devices use which DNS servers, and changing the DNS setiings on the device itself will not make a difference. Probably not foolproof, but makes it easy to maintain in one central place. I can add and delete devices by purely changing the address list. This idea was given to me on the forum a while back and so far works quite well.

By the way, this exact same setup can be used for devices that you want to bypass geo blocking services. For example, setup a Netflix address list for your Rokus, TV's or whatever you use, and point only those devices to unotelly, or whatever.
 
Thanks Arthus and Bernie,

I do run pfsense so thought of a DNS service. Also installed Norton last night on an Androis and IOS device.

Seems this combination should work as best as it can as it allows management of the many young visitors my uncapped, 100Mbps network seems to attract.

And the device-side solution gives some peace of mind when on a non-home network.
 
jannievanzyl said:
Thanks Arthus and Bernie,

I do run pfsense so thought of a DNS service. Also installed Norton last night on an Androis and IOS device.

Seems this combination should work as best as it can as it allows management of the many young visitors my uncapped, 100Mbps network seems to attract.

And the device-side solution gives some peace of mind when on a non-home network.
Click to expand...

Uncapped 100Mbps....

Please adopt me.

I can cook sandwiches
 
DrayTek Web Content Filter

jannievanzyl said:
Pretty much as per heading, what is the best system/service out there to provide parental protection on a range of devices; PC, MAC, Android, IOS, etc.

Googling pops up a number, but I'd prefer the real-world experience of the MyBB forumites. :)
Click to expand...

Hi there Jannie,

If you would prefer a cloud-managed solution that is router-based, our DrayTek routers feature a built-in Web Content Filtering function, which you can set to apply to your whole network, or to a subset of devices - for example, only the kids. It allows for filtering of any of 64 categories, including Child Protection and others per the attached image.

Will send a PM with more info.
Edit: On second thought, your PMs aren't active :) Feel free to mail us at: support at draytek dot co dot za , and we can arrange something for you.

WCF.jpg
 
Last edited:
AirWolf said:
100mbps uncapped? You also got Telkom LTE uncapped? :whistle:


:p
Click to expand...

:)

Telkom pitched up at my front door the other day trying to sell me their Fibre service. Was completely dumbstruck when I told them I've got VC 100Mb/s uncapped. ;)
 
jannievanzyl said:
:)

Telkom pitched up at my front door the other day trying to sell me their Fibre service. Was completely dumbstruck when I told them I've got VC 100Mb/s uncapped. ;)
Click to expand...
Show off!! Why aren't you showing us plebs your fibre?

1473258149110.jpg
 
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