Cyber Patrol – Parental Control
Parents are your kids out of control on the internet? Do they watch illicit materials? Do they search for things like “Miley Cyrus” in an inappropriate context? Well then Cyber Patrol maybe the answer you are looking for. What Cyber Patrol is, is it is a parental control function for your computer. With it, you can save yourself the headache of having you or your child’s computer bloated with spyware, malware, or viruses. While it cannot stop everything, it works by protecting your kids from the online dangers. Cyber Patrol in its simplest definition is a content filter, the parent (you) add websites to the content filter and the program will prevent their access, but there is more, since your kids are probably smart (at least with the computer), you can add more generic content filters, things like keywords or phrases.
In addition to filtering internet content, you can filter out what your children actually do on the computer, programs such as instant messaging, access to finance programs or specific files or directories can all be restricted through this simple, unified, and easy to understand interface. When you do allow your children to use these services or the internet, you will be able to see exactly what websites they visited, how long they used the services and who they were “chatting” with. Speaking of chatting, this software monitors the chat so intensely that it can block specific information from being sent or received. Things like personal information (address, phone number, real name, etc.) can all be filtered out in real time. When your child encounters a “cyber bully”, rest assured that none of the cyber bully’s rude and inconsiderate phrases or words will reach your child’s screen if you’re using Cyber Patrol as the program seeks out and rephrases key phrases.
There is one final feature worth mentioning, user control. User control is a paramount of security and monitoring. Cyber Patrol allows you to create profiles for each resident of your home, so you, your child, and your spouse all get their own user accounts with defined filters for each. Once you have your profiles set up, you can use them to administer time usage online. If you want your child to get outside more, then set the software to limit time online to something around the 20 hour mark, since 20/7 is 2.86 hours a day, that’s more than enough for homework.
The price of this piece of mind is about $13 per computer, packages start at three computers for $39.95. Cyber Patrol has won three big awards, five cows from Tucows, four of five stars from PC Magazine, and high recognition from Computer Shopper. This software would be particularly helpful for parents who are not at home too often and require a higher standard for their children. In closing, I think every parent should speak with their children more, regardless if they’re using monitoring software or not, showing you care will get a more positive return in your relationship with your dear child.
