Customer Reviews

CyberPatrol Parental Controls 7.7

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

Tried the parental controls in Vista and my security suite but they didn't have all the features I was looking for. Decided to try Cyberpatrol based on good reviews I had seen. Has everything I wanted and more. I have kids ages 8, 13, 16 and they all use the same computer. Best thing is that I can set different filtering rules for each of the kids. Doesn't just block bad websites, also lets you set time limits, keep track of where they've been going on the `net, even block them from sending out personal info. Easy to use especially if you just want to use the default settings, just install and go, but lots of ability to configure it the way you want.

My husband and I installed this on our 5 and 7 year olds computer so they could surf without gross things popping up. We tested it out for about an hour and it is a very effective tool. They can access their websites with no problem and the bad stuff can't come through. We recommend!

When my grand children visit, they are always using my PC. I was afraid that they might end up on the wrong web sites. Somehow they always end up going to places that mess up my computer. So I installed CyberPatrol. It works great and it even let my control when the kids could use my PC. Great stuff!

I ordered and then returned this product.

Pro:
I think this is a well-established product and consistently the highest rated product for protecting kids and teens on the Internet, and protection is highly recommended if you know the facts. [No need to be paranoid but some common sense supervision of your kids while on the Internet and a product to cover the remaining situations is a good idea.] This product gets consistently good reviews and has many good features.

Con: The version 7.7 does NOT list Windows 7 compatibility. If you buy it and it does not work with Win7, it's your problem, according to the Amazon sub-vendors. I had checked and was told that it does work with Win7 and the info on Amazon will be updated, bought it, but when it arrived, the packaging still did not list Win7, so I asked the manufacturer and learned that they view it as Win7 compatible (despite not showing same...), but only with the 32-bit version, NOT tested with 64-bit, and we have 64-bit (Win7 Home Premium) so we returned the software, taking a hit on return shipping costs that neither the vendor nor Amazon would address. The vendor's position was understandable, not frivolous or mean, but also not very gracious. Many people do not have the savvy to even look at system requirements in the first place much less determine 32-bit vs. 64-bit.

Just note that "officially" it is not compatible with Win7 despite that operating system being out for a long while now and being the default system provided with new computers (a very common situation when buying new software...), which is a pretty dumb situation and a likely pitfall for consumers.

Summary: If you have WinXP, etc., it should be a great product. If you have Win7, you are rolling the dice, may work fine or not work

Attempted to run CyberPatrol 7.7 under windows 7 64-bit. Internet Explorer ended up to be completely unworkable (slow) if any filtering of content was taking place. Once filtering is disabled then IE performance is okay, but whats the point of that. Otherwise I thought the software looked pretty good, but really never got to fully test it.

The CyberPatrol website does NOT make it clear that this software is NOT supported under Win7 64-bit. They just say "Windows 7". Well if your going to put it that way, then I'm going to assume *any* version of Windows 7, not just the 32-bit one. See for yourself - hopefully they fix it: [...]

I tried the mfg suggestion of disabling AV software and clearing temp files and history under IE. Did a complete reinstall after those, but got the same sluggish performance.

The response I got back from tech support: "Also, please note that presently, 64-bit OS's are not officially compatible with, nor supported by CyberPatrol. We have seen some cases where it was successfully installed and functioned on 64-bit Windows 7, but it is not guaranteed to do that, as it was not developed for, nor tested in a 64-bit environment."

If you have Windows 7 64-bit the I'd recommend staying away.

I purchased this software based on reviews and the fact that it could be used on 3 computers for the price of one. It worked great for about four months and then it just stopped working. I still don't know what happened. There was no error messages or any indication that it was failing. It just didn't work one day and even uninstall/reinstalling it didn't fix the problem. I contacted customer service but their support requires you to contact them and wait for an email response with a code. that code is only good for a few hours and you have to contact them with that code to proceed through the troubleshooting process. Of course they are only available M-F, 8-5. You literally have to take off work just to get support. I was so disappointed because it was so effective until it just wasn't. If they can resolve the support issues it is a great buy until then it's just a waste of money.

This product lets me create a list of approved websites. This keeps me from having to create a banned list by having to guess all the places I don't want my kids to go. I just create a list of places they ARE allowed to go. The product then limits them to only those sites. Combining the allowed sites with allowed keywords, I got the flexibility to allow for the peculiarities of how some of my kids' favorite sites work. Note that this capability wasn't clear from the description or even from the company website. Fortunately, the company offers a free trial and after downloading it, I was able to find this ability, what they call "Creating a Yes List" via the built-in help documentation. The only thing that keeps this from getting 5 stars is that it doesn't allow wildcarding of website names. You either have to key in exact names or fallback on the website keyword functionality. If they add the wildcarding of website names, I think this product would be even stronger. Also the product automatically covered my two main browsers, Firefox (90%) and IE (10%). Some other products I've tried only seem to work with IE but left Firefox wide open.

We bought cyberpatrol and loaded it onto all three of our computers - 2 vista, and 1 xp. All three began to run slower and also to have errors and windows explorer would shut down randomly. Over a few months time they all became so slow that they were nearly unuseable. After removing it they all ran MUCH better.

So it was a total waste of money for us. We are now using AOL's safety toolbar. It's so much easier to use and free.

This looked like it would be a great program for protecting my kids - that is until they turned the computer on and saw the login screen for it. So they immediately new i had installed something. On top of that their Facebook and Oovoo accounts would not run even though they were on the allowed site list. I was very disappointed.

This Software is excellent for kids. Is ease tu use and de tecnical support is good.