Best programs to protect kids from porn /monitor on internet?

9 points by CamatHN ↗ HN
Alternatives to OpenDNS?

9 comments

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If your on a mac, a lot of what you would want to see works OOTB with no fancy solution.

If your not on a mac your going to want more than openDNS, more along the lines of a full fledged proxy.

Take the first few opportunities to educate and let them go figure things out for themselves. You will both be happier with the approach... If you create limits they are going to figure out how to get around them (friends, starubucks, neighbors wifi).

Talk to them about stuff before its a "thing." No matter what you do their friend from school will have figured out how to get around the school firewall and get to the "good" stuff on the Internet, and if you're kids haven't been talked to about it yet they will be at the mercy of their friend describing how they should interpret it.

You want them to recognize when predators try to create a chat session with them, how their presence on the Internet is perceived by others, and some basic eye opening about the wide variety of behaviors people get into once they are adults (and mid teens). For my daughters we started talking about this around the dinner table when they were about 10.

The best benefit of having conversations upfront is that there is a sound first response - another conversation - when some undesirable behavior happens...whether it's one that was discussed specifically or not.
Best advice. You can't prevent them forever, plus they can always watch porn on other devices, not just at home.

Also it depends on how old are the kids. Maybe they're already old enough to know what they are watching.

i second the education comment. give the kid some credit. they'll know porn when they see it. discuss the consequences and you set the kid up for success. if you just block it and don't educate they'll be set up for failure.
Adblockers on browsers can help a bit.
An ad blocker is important. I'm not a fan of ad blockers in general, but there are so many awful ads out there that young children definitely need them.
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