Expert guide: protecting your kids online

Chris' recent blog post about a parent's guide to online gaming made the very good point that it isn't fair to force kids to use their computer in a family room just so you can check they aren't up to anything untoward.

That said, parents have a right to be worried about what their child is getting up to online. Newspapers like to make out that the internet is a scary, dangerous thing with inevitable front-page splashes every time a confused teen runs off to meet their internet boyfriend and ridiculous headlines like “Facebook causes cancer” ( I wish I was making that one up). But while we aren't bombarded with pornography the moment we logon there is still plenty of material you rightfully wouldn't want kids viewing.

To help protect your family – particularly younger children – there are some handy technological solutions that can help secure your broadband connection.

Family friendly broadband

Broadband providers have realised that marketing their packages as safe for the family can net more users so lots of them now provide free parental controls as part of the deal. BT broadband offer something called NetProtect plus for £3.49 per month, which includes McAfee software for anti-virus and parental control. Sky broadband include a free trial of McAfee Internet Security, though you'll need to pay an annual fee when that expires. Virgin Media broadband includes a tool called PCguard, which also works on any connection for as long as you subscribe to Virgin.

Your provider may already include security features as part of your service so check with them before installing, or paying for, any other software. Alternatively, Windows has built-in functions for controlling access so you may not need any additional applications.

Windows Parental Controls

Windows Vista and Windows 7 have the most comprehensive tools – just head into Control Panel and click Parental Controls. Here you can change the parental settings for any user account.

Click Time Limits and, as shown in this screengrab, you can adjust when the computer can be accessed by a particular user account. Just drag or click on the chart to block times and days. This is useful if you don't want kids using the computer after a certain time so they don't stay up all night (time control can be activated in XP as well but is a little more complicated. Read about the /times command in this Microsoft article for more information). You can also lock down games by content rating and block access to particular applications through the parental controls.

It's essential to set up user accounts because if the kids have administrator level access they'll be able to change all the settings themselves. To view your and change these options click the User Accounts link in Control Panel. This feature is also available in Windows XP.

Create standard accounts for the kids and they'll have their own personal documents folders (no arguments with siblings then) and won't be able to get into your files. A standard account also restricts what can be done with the PC to reduce the risk from viruses. Use an administrator account for yourself so that you've got complete control and can enable/disable safety features as necessary.

Family Safety

For further internet-specific controls Microsoft offer the free Family Safety tool, which you can download here, and it is surprisingly comprehensive for a freebie. Once installed login with a Live ID (the same username and password as Hotmail, Messenger, Xbox Live and other Microsoft services) and change settings via the Live.com web site (so it can even be controlled remotely). Web Filtering has a basic level which blocks adult sites and a more aggressive 'Strict' option that blocks everything but child-friendly sites and any you add manually. Parents can specify sites to block, and even prevent a user downloading files.

Family Safety offers the ability to monitor activity on the computer, recording web sites and activity on the computer. It'll tell you what sites have been visited, files downloaded and which applications and games were used. For more privacy, check 'Blocked Activity' to display only attempts at accessing filtered sites. There's also the Contact Management feature that allows parents to control who their child chats with through Hotmail and Messenger.

However, in my opinion both Contact Management and Activity Reporting are a major invasion of privacy and unless the child is very young it would be better to talk to them about the risks and teach them how to safely use the internet, rather than imposing such extreme and paranoid security measures. Filtering sites isn't a perfect solution either, as no matter what package you use it's inevitable that perfectly legitimate links will be blocked, and kids can and will find a way around it if they really want to, whether they bypass your security or simply visit a friend's house.

Even those of us who don't have children can remember what it's like being one, and how important it is to have your own private space. This is particularly true of teenagers who won't appreciate parents peeking over their shoulder to read messages and emails. Tools like Family Safety and the parental controls can be useful, but just like we tell kids how to cross the road and not talk to strangers instead of keeping them indoors, the best defence is to teach them how to apply some common sense to their web browsing rather than lock down their internet access.