content filtering for children

[MikeTbob]

Hey Forum Members!
We have a Teenage son, (13) on a Windows Machine and he is getting to that stage in life where he wants to explore ALL the net has to offer, including pages with questionable content. We have tried one program called "Parent Crawler" and it seems to work fairly well but MAN, it slows the entire system down, so bad that our son will not use the Windows machine anymore, he'll just use my Linux box. So my question is, Can anyone recommend a content filter that works good without slowing the system to a crawl?

[jayd512]

This is a list of some products out there. I've never had any of them on my systems at home, but WebSense has been used in some of the companies I 've worked for. No really noticable slow down. I've also heard pretty good reviews and opinions about CyberSitter. Hope these help you out.

[MikeTbob]

Thanks for the reply jayd512,
I am looking at the provided links now, hopefully we can find something to our liking. Too bad we can't just tell the kids "Hey don't look at this stuff, it's bad for you and it will cause you to go blind"!

[jayd512]

I agree. And even though alot of folks out there will tell you not to let the kids surf the net unless you're there to supervise, it's hard to do that. First off, I'm sure you have other things that you need to tend to. And at the age of 13, he's gonna want his own space and use his own judgment... but as I recall *my* judgment wasn't always that great.

[Thrillhouse]

You've probably already come across it, MikeTbob, but if not: DansGuardian?

[stinkoman]

my opinion he'll find a way around whatever if hes any good with computers. anyway, ive never been filtered by my parents

[devils casper]

I have never used any Content Filter ( Just married, no children yet ! ) but DansGuardian looks very promising.

[MikeTbob]

Thanks for the replies folks!
I did see dansguardian and it is in Gentoo repos, so that will get installed on my machine. We're just not sure what to do about the Windows machine, I was hoping someone had experience with one of the "Premium" web content filters like Net Nanny, which you have to pay for.
I'm going to give this one a shot and see how it works.
K9 Web Protection - Free Internet Filtering and Parental Controls Software

[Chris H]

I'm a foster carer and was asked by the authorities to install some form of net control on the family windows pc.

Ended up using CyberPatrol. Does what it says on the tin and I haven't noticed any slowing down of the pc.

[rainman1]

I think you will like the iBoss parental control. I purchased one in Jan. and really enjoy it. My boys kept bypassing or finding a workaround with the software I installed, darn they are smarter than you think Its a wireless router with the parental controls in the router. not like the other routers I tried. this is REALLY full featued. I spoke with the guys in tech support and they know there stuff. The router actually runs a hardened Linux firewall. It connects to there URL database so you just check the categories you want to block. Great since I now dont have to go over to my boys computer to configure since you can do it from anycomputer. Anyhow, sounds like you had the same problem as i did. Best of all, there is no software so it will block all the computers, Linux, windows, Mac, etc. check them out. Leo Laporte spoke about them a bit back. I dont have the website but google iBoss and it should show up.