Customer Reviews

Net Nanny

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(9)

 

 

I purchased Net Nanny from my local Staples Store; I installed it and discovered that it is totally useless. I t would immediately block out any page that I had set as my home page.

The problems continued when I set the user settings. Being a parent of a pre-teen I wanted to control what my child was accessing but as an adult I didn't need to be protected from myself. The program would block me from accessing sites, even though my user profile was set to not block anything.

Signing in under my child's name I was able to see nude pictures within seconds. But then it started shutting down my browser for violations, even on sites like Yahoo.com, despite the fact that I had the program set not to shut down the browser upon a violation, just to block and warn.

The last straw came when the program started calling up my dial-up networking connection when I was working on non-net related programs, such as MS Word. Over and over the connect box would come up. I tried contacting customer support; their suggestions were juvenile and did not solve any, or even address several of the problems.

The box clearly states "Customer Satisfaction Guaranteed", I have not found this to be true. Staples return policy would not allow them to return my money, just replace with the same item, which I did and tried with the same results.

Net Nanny has ignored my repeated request for a refund by not replying to any of my e-mail requests sent to any of the address on their web site.

I'm now using CyberPatrol, which seems to work as promised, as for Net Nanny, my advice is to steer clear and try Cyber Sitter or CyberPatrol.

Be warned: this product does not work with current versions of Netscape; the Company claims to have a fix, but aren't advertising it and won't send the patch out unless you go through a 20 or so step set of instructions involving your "FTP client" in the DOS function of your computer to get a download. Not what I was hoping to do. In any case, on principle I wouldn't buy from this type of company.

Although my software promised 30 days of free telephone technical support, they discontinued that without telling anyone in May.

On IE, the software works ok, although it's clunky. I haven't decided whether even to continue to use it if I could get them to send me the patch. But again, there's got to be a better company and a better way.

I can't really comment on the product, because I never got to use it. Net Nanny 4.0 is not compatible with several popular ISP's (AOL, CompuServe and Road Runner). You would think that this information would be mentioned in obvious places, but it's not.

My teenage boys are tempted to view things online that I wouldn't approve of. By installing Net Nanny, they have been discouraged from even trying - and actually thanked me for providing a safeguard to help them discipline themselves. I have had zero problems with compatibility with other programs, it is easy to use, and doesn't slow down my computer. I highly recommend it.

Scheduling function not exactly foolproof.

I've experienced a variety of small issues using Net Nanny thus far (inability to use Norton Antivirus auto-updates, Win98 auto-updates, Outlook express issues, etc.) but I have to say the worst is the scheduling function.

We purchased NetNanny in part because of it's claimed ability to regulate access times to the internet via a scheduling function. This function allows you to set a schedule of time specific users can have access to the internet. The function works great. However we quickly noticed that simply changing the PC's time (via the clock on the taskbar) will bypass this feature. This renders this feature useless. I don't know of a child over the age of 8 that doesn't know how to change the PC's time.

I'm very sad that this did not work. I heard a lot of hype about it and wasted my money. I did a simple search on google of word 'sex' , it returned me saveral pages and 3 links of sponsors, all porn sites. Needles to say I was able to browse their sponsors. I even updated the NN database, but same thing happen.

Other problem is that it is dragging the whole system down, I have cable ISP, it feels like I'm running modem connection. I did not like user name/password either. For big family that might be good, but for me I want it to work quitly in the back ground.

I have tried and tried to get this product to operate correctly. No matter the setting I choose, it is either too strict or too permissive. I've tried using both a self created list and the one provided by Net Nanny. I cannot get either to work right. I am very frustrated by it and have been forced to uninstall it three times in order to access my homepage (ESPN.com). If you have more patience, maybe your result will be different, but I cannot recommend this product.

Net Nanny 4 was developed in response to concerns about "the worst" of the Internet and is an essential software application for your PC. It has the capability to monitor the Internet, standard email, IRC chat programs, newsgroups, and offline applications in a fully customizable, user friendly environment. Net Nanny 4 gives the parent or administrator complete control over what is being accessed from your PC. Net Nanny 4 is the solution for your family. Requirements: CD-ROM drive, Pentium or higher CPU, 50MB of available hard disk space, 32MB Ram, Windows 98, 98SE, NT or 2000 Stand Alone System, not compatible with AOL.

I downloaded the trial version of this software to try it out. Immediately my internet speed slowed to a crawl (I have low speed cable internet, which is much faster than dial up, but slower than the high speed). As soon as I uninstalled the software, the internet speed resumed to normal.

I'm not sure how this would operate with high speed internet, but if you have anything but that, I can tell you it will be too slow to surf the internet without experiencing a long wait for each page to load.

Not worth it.

Does not allow hibernation in windows ME my computer stays on all the time and I have to manually place it into hibernation. Otherwise than that it works as advertised