Net Nanny Parental Control Software Review

Firstly, let me try to describe what a parental control software is. In a nutshell, parental control software is a computer program that can help parents to control and monitor their child's internet activity.

Typically, parental control software has the ability to allow or block website contents, monitor and report your child's online activity, control the time your child can go online, and some of the more advanced software provide parents with remote management capability.

However, it is important to remember that parental control software is a technology solution to help you protect your child safety on the net. Although it is an effective approach (and many parents starting to use it), it should not be viewed as the only solution to the problem. You should also incorporate a soft approach such as establishing good communications with your child in order to understanding their online and offline behavior better, and highlight some of the key dangers they can potentially face online and how to protect themselve against it.

Installation is easy with Net Nanny software. It only took me few minutes to install. You will be asked to enter a username and password during installation and a security question (just in case you forget your password later). You will also be asked to create a user profile or you can leave this to later.

User profile is a profile you create for each of your child. You will be asked to provide username and password and select one of the predefined profile category for your child. These categories are young child, child, pre-teen, teen, young adult, and adult. Each profile include default filter settings, time controls, monitoring settings, and games settings. This give you a quick and easy way to select the most appropriate controls you think you should apply for your kids.

Do take note that, once the installation is completed you need to restart your PC for the software to take effect.

There are 31 categories in the web browsing filtering. These categories not only contain common categories like alcohol, gambling, illegal drugs, pornography, etc, but they also include other 'less offensive' categories like financials, sports, travel, kids, employment and career, and many others. Each category has Allow, Warn, and Block option. These options are fully customizable of course.

Other features I like in the web filtering section are the options to record web activity, display the reason for being blocked, and allow user to request exception. It gives your child the flexibility to understand why certain sites are restricted and report sites that they think they should have access to.

I was using Admin profile with Adult/Mature setting set to Block. I did my test by typing "teen sex" on Google search and it was captured by Net Nanny. A warning pop up window (as shown here on the right) appear with 3 options (Request Exception, Override, and Back). Request Exception allow the user to ask for exception from the administrator (usually the parents) and they can select whether the site should be block, allow, or belong to other categories. Alternatively, your child can seek request override right away, but they will need you to enter the admin password after selecting the Override option.

IM filtering has the ability to record your child's IM activity for the main IM types (AIM, Windows Live Messenger, Yahoo! Messenger, Jabber - Google talk etc, QQ, and MySpaceIM. This feature also include IM monitoring for main categories such as Flirting, Profanity, Sexual Content, Hurtful Language, Personal Information, Direct Threats, to name a few.

I decided to put this to the test too. I fired up both my Windows Live Messenger and Yahoo! Messenger chat and type 3 sentences containing some sexual fair. Jumping the gun a bit here, so I went to the Report section under and my IM report shows this:

There is 1 conversation flag for potentially objectionable content. Click here for more details.

I followed the link and saw the exact 3 sentences I typed and sent from my Windows Live Messenger to my Yahoo! Messenger.

i want to make love to you
are you sexually attracted to me?
let's meet up so we can talk about sex

The information in the report are Sender, Receiver, Message (the actually user message), and the Time (Date and Time of the message was sent). See the result screen shot above (I had to remove my hotmail and yahoo username for privacy reason though).

Overall, my test was successful and I am happy with the result.

This shows how powerful Net Nanny Parental Control software is. You can have peace of mind knowing what exactly your child talk about with their online friends.

Additional Settings filter allow access to chat rooms, newsgroups, and peer-to-peer sites. You can also filter and block secure content (HTTPS) from unsupported applications.

What I like is the Social Networking profile reporting feature. You can set an email alert notification when a selected user who has Facebook (only Facebook is available for this version) account have their IM or Websites blocked. They are many other conditions you can set for alert notification.

I did a quick test by accessing my Facebook profile. Upon entering my Facebook username and password, I was prompted by several warning messages before I could enter my Facebook profile. I then checked my email (the email I use to send alert notification to) and I received an email from Content Watch (The company who owns Net Nanny) with the below message (also screen capture on the right).

Note: Again I have to replace my personal with "********" below.

Net Nanny User: Admin
=============================
Type of notification: Web Activity
-----------------------------------------
Action: Block
URL: www.facebook.com/home.php?
Reason: Gambling
Date/Time: 2009-07-26 01:03:38 PM
Windows Username: ********* This is the computer login name.
PC: ************************* This is a computer name
Version: ************* Computer version.
IP address: ********************* IP address

-----------------------------------------
Type of notification: Web Activity
-----------------------------------------
Action: Block
URL: www.facebook.com/home.php?ref=home
Reason: Gambling
Date/Time: 2009-07-26 01:05:03 PM
Windows Username: *******
PC: *************************
Version: ********
IP address: **************

-----------------------------------------
Org ID: 596860
=============================

Override password is used to override controls submitted by your child. Uninstall password is used to remove the Net Nanny software from your child's computer.

I strongly recommend using different password for each option. If for example your child happen to know of (by shoulder surfing) your override password (and use that to allow themselves to many offensive sites without your notice), at least they can't uninstall the software from the computer because it requires a separate password to do so.

This is a very basic controls, but a powerful one. It basically allow parents to set a time slots when their child can use internet. The controls come with default allow internet usage at all time 24 x 7 (green box). If you want to block certain time you don't want your child to use the internet, simply hover your mouse to that time slot and click. For longer time frames (1 hour or more), simply select start time and hold your mouse over to the stop time. The chosen slot will be highlighted in Pink (means block). To undo, simply repeat the same process over the chosen time slot and the color will change back to green (allow internet usage).

I actually locked myself out from the internet when I was testing this. Luckily I was only selecting 30 mins block and when I tried to connect to the internet during the 'block period', I was prompted for an override login window. I used my Admin password to override the control and I was able to connect to the internet again.

In the case of your child, they will not be able to override the control unless they get you to enter the Admin password for override. Of course, then you will be questioning them why they want to access the internet at 3:00pm (one of your blocked time slot) when they are supposed to be doing their school homework.

Time Controls also allow you to give time allowance (in hours) per day or per week. This is a good feature and can be used as a motivational tools for your kids. If they do something good at home, finished their school homework and behave themselves, you can give them extra time allowances as a reward. The contrary is also true in that you can take away or reduce their time allowance if they being naughty at home, don't listen to you or being lazy on that school homework. This is more like a merit/demerit system they have in school.

Another good feature is the Game Controls. Actually, Net Nanny 6.0 is the first parental control software solution to set age-based gaming restrictions using the ESRB rating system and the first to block desktop PC games based on categories, including violence, sex, alcohol, drugs and more. They worked directly with the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB).

The ESRB ratings comes in 6 age categories from 3 years and older all the way to 18 years and older. Each category contains default settings that ESRB think is appropriate for that age group. The other beauty is it has the ability for parents to set a more granular controls for each category.For example, say you set your games controls for your Teen, you can restrict the control further by blocking certain harmful contents for your teen (e.g. sexual content, nudity, real gambling, etc).

You can also select any of the listed games on the list that you want allow or block for your kids.

Exceptions is where you can review all the web and applications exception request by your kids. Once reviewed, you then either set the exception to Allow, Block, or assign it to the appropriate controls category. There is an option for you to Reject the request if you think they are not appropriate for your kids.

Additionally, you can manually add websites or applications you think needs control into the control list. This is handy when you have certain sites not included in the Net Nanny database but you think should be blocked. The same goes for applications.

In my opinion, Net Nanny Parental Control produce excellent and a very detailed reports. The report section consist of 4 main categories namely Web Activity, Instant Message Activity, Instant Message Alerts, and Social Networking Profiles.

Web Activity
Web Activity report consist of categories of visited sites and the number of hits for each category. Very useful for parents to have a quick snapshot of the sites their kids most or least frequently visit online. You also get Web Filter Actions report breaking down the Allow, Block, and Block Override statistics. On top of that, you get User Web Activity Report (showing the website hits per user). Finally, you also get Web Activity by Day showing Hits for a given date and time.

Instant Message Activity
IM Activity reports consists of IM Services Utilized (shows which IM type is used by your kids), IM Activity by User, and IM by Day. Clicking on any of the graphs will direct you to more detailed reports consist of exact IM messages sent and received by your kids (as I have discussed earlier above).

Instant Message Alerts
IM Alerts as discussed earlier consist of username, protocol, time stamp, and categories for any flagged IM messages. Again, drill down further you will see the actual text being typed by your kids.

Social Networking Profiles
I like this one. It gives you a snapshot visibility to your kids Facebook profile, their personal details, photos, and most importantly who their Facebook friends are - all without actually logging on to their Facebook profile.

This is another great feature of Net Nanny. It allows parent to remotely control and monitor their kids online activity simply by logging on to the secure Content Watch remote management portal using the user account you setup during installation. You have access to the same features of Net Nanny Parental Control online.

This is extremely useful for parents who travel frequently but still wanting to "know" what their kids do at home - online. Parents can review exception requests by their kids remotely and decide on the relevant controls to be activated. Now, your kids may just tell you that you are a control freek parents, even when you are travelling. You know what, in my opinion it is always BETTER BE SAFE THAN SORRY.

Overall, Net Nanny Parental Control software is an excellent choice for parents. Not only it is easy to setup, it is also easy to use and the controls are very granular. As you know, no 2 kids are the same and this granular controls allow parents to set controls that best suited their kids.

The only limitation I find lacking in this version is the fact that it only supports Facebook for Social Networking profile reporting. Maybe in the future, more social networking sites like Myspace will be added. During the initial setup, you may also experience popup windows appearing often, but once the controls and user profiles has been setup properly you will experience less of them. The software will just do it's job in the background.

Finally, I highly recommend this software for parents who wanted to take the technology approach (besides the softer approach I discussed earlier) to improve their kids online protection level. Like they say, more solutions working on the same problem is always better than just having one.

Visit Net Nanny site and learn more great benefits about this software.