Review
This solid Internet safety utility both filters incoming data and monitors how kids use the computer. If desired, you can prohibit the sending of personal information, or can create your own lists of inappropriate content if Net Nanny's built in lists aren't enough. The parent options are password protected and offer numerous setup possibilities, letting you prevent sites, words, phrases or subject matter from being sent or received. An audit trail lets you view your child's activities, and the program can be customized for up to 12 users- great for a family of kids with different Internet needs.
Teaches: internet filtering and monitoring
Age Range: 7-up Copyright © 2000 Children's Software Revue -- From Children's Software Revue® -- "Subscribe Now!"
Yesterday, a local attorney was arrested for using Internet chat rooms to solicit sex from minors. Every week I get at least one unwanted and untraceable e-mail informing me where I can view pornography. If I click on the wrong item, I sometimes find myself in the red light district of cyberspace. I dont want my children -- or any children -- to stumble onto this Internet slime. The idea behind Internet filters such as Net Nanny 4 is to limit what gets to your browser, and to keep children or others from encountering objectionable words, images and even entire sites.
The keys of a good Internet filter are simplicity, thoroughness, and flexibility. The program must be simple enough to allow parents to install, configure, and manage it. In addition, it must be thorough in excluding the specified objectionable material; at the same time, it must be flexible enough to allow exceptions for certain gray areas. Net Nanny 4 scores high in all three criteria.
Installation and setup was simple. Net Nanny already has a long list of default Cant Go Web sites. Simply viewing some of the sites on this list would be enough to convince skeptics of the need for Net Nanny. Besides creeps and X-rated pictures, there is a lot of hate material loaded with racial and ethnic slurs, as well as violent content. While including such a default list of objectionable sites would seem obvious, I have used other filtering programs that either require you to subscribe to their lists before anything happens or that dont let you see what sites are on their list. Net Nanny lets you add other sites to avoid excluding the kids from toy shills might be one strategy or permit access to selected Cant Go sites, if you wish. If you try to access any forbidden sites, a message appears instead, blocking the site.
There is a similar list of offensive words and phrases. (Note: keep kids from seeing the Cant Go and words list.) In addition to including more dirty words than I could ever think of, this list also has newsgroup names and e-mail addresses that are presumably sources of distasteful material. Again, you would think such a list would be standard, but Ive seen programs that require you to enter all the offensive terms that you want to avoid, a revolting task if ever there was one. If any site contains any banned words, the word is simply blanked out on the screen.
Net Nannys default is locked-down mode: once you install it, you cant access the Web until you define at least one user and the filtering parameters for that user. This is very simple: click on a user icon, enter a name and password, then just check boxes for what can and cannot be viewed. I rapidly defined different standards for myself and my children, for example.
When I tried to access certain obvious sites such as the Playboy or Penthouse sites I was stopped cold. None of my technology tricks let me get around Net Nannys filter.
I then tested Net Nanny with a very mild example of my Internet concerns. My son likes to play games on the MSN Gaming Zone, quite benign except for some salty chat language. With the default lists on, only blank spaces appeared where youd ordinarily see certain common dirty words.
You can overrule Net Nanny on the fly if you want. For example, if you want to see a common nickname for Richard that has an unfortunate connotation, you can remove that item from the word list. Net Nanny puts an icon in the system tray that makes it easy to make such adjustments.
Two other capabilities are worthy of special note. You can have Net Nanny record all chat sessions for selected users, which is a sure way to spot the tracks of pedophiles. In addition, you can define schedules of allowed Internet access. After all, Web surfing can be addictive and its prudent to limit usage to certain times.
The Web is a cornucopia of information, useful services, and even inspiration. But children need something like Net Nanny 4 to exclude the bad apples. -- From Winmag®
