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Old 09-13-2010, 10:23 PM
 
Location: Las Flores, Orange County, CA
26,338 posts, read 93,601,376 times
Reputation: 17830

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I have four kids that are using the computers in our house a lot without adult supervision. My gut feeling is what they are using them for is OK, mostly top 40 music videos on YouTube type stuff and my oldest has a Facebook account and I and my wife are her friends. I "think" I've set her Facebook account up in a very safe configuration.

I want to configure the computers so they won't be able to access adult material, anything inappropriate.

I have several computers, all run XP Pro (except my Win 7).
I have user accounts on all the PCs and only my account is admin, the rest are limited.
All the PCs are on a home network.
Firefox is our primary browser on all the computers.

What are some of the most common techniques used to address this? Third party software? Browser settings? XP settings?

I'm trying to do this as easily as possible even if the end result isn't perfect. I don't want to intervene every five minutes to allow content that is blocked even though it is acceptable (false positives).
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Old 09-13-2010, 11:37 PM
 
11,715 posts, read 40,387,561 times
Reputation: 7585
Take a look at OpenDNS. You can regulate traffic by category but also custom black/white lists. Its free too.
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Old 09-13-2010, 11:49 PM
 
11,715 posts, read 40,387,561 times
Reputation: 7585
Or you can download Astaro's software for free, stick it on a low end PC with two Ethernet interfaces, and control it all locally.
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Old 09-14-2010, 07:20 AM
 
Location: Las Flores, Orange County, CA
26,338 posts, read 93,601,376 times
Reputation: 17830
Sounds good.

http://www.pcworld.idg.com.au/articl...s_alternative/

10 ways to keep your children safe online - privacy, parenting, online security, online safety, internet security, browser, broadband - PC World
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Old 09-14-2010, 02:29 PM
 
422 posts, read 790,337 times
Reputation: 143
OpenDNS is good, but when a domain doesnt resolve, they show a page full of ads, so I can't reccomend it.

I've used K9 Web Protection - Free Internet Filter and Parental Control Software | Free Internet Filtering and Parental Controls Software in the past with good success. IE has content advisor built in, but it doesnt work that well.
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Old 09-14-2010, 02:43 PM
 
11,715 posts, read 40,387,561 times
Reputation: 7585
Quote:
Originally Posted by dougstech View Post
OpenDNS is good, but when a domain doesnt resolve, they show a page full of ads, so I can't reccomend it.
Oh, no! Text ads instead of a 404. How do you think they maintain the service? Besides, many ISPs do that and worse without providing any benefit. I like OpenDNS because the filtering happens at the network, not client level.
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Old 09-14-2010, 05:07 PM
 
Location: Silicon Valley
3,683 posts, read 9,842,887 times
Reputation: 3015
Don't laugh, but I've found Windows Live Family Safety to do what I need to prevent a very clever eight-year-old from going places he shouldn't. I think I'm not using the latest version though, possibly because the kid's laptop is running XP.

Windows Live Family Safety
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Old 09-14-2010, 06:07 PM
 
10,924 posts, read 21,934,851 times
Reputation: 10567
As mentions start with openDNS

This statement "My gut feeling is what they are using them for is OK" is what I typically hear from parents who don't want to actually say "I have no clue what they're doing" when they come in with a computer that's chock full of malware and god knows what else.
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Old 09-14-2010, 06:26 PM
 
422 posts, read 790,337 times
Reputation: 143
Quote:
Originally Posted by EscapeCalifornia View Post
Oh, no! Text ads instead of a 404. How do you think they maintain the service? Besides, many ISPs do that and worse without providing any benefit. I like OpenDNS because the filtering happens at the network, not client level.
I understand that they have to stay in business, but it would be nice to be able to turn that "feature" off. I would like domains to not resolve, and give an error rather than acting like every single domain will resolve. It's a nightmare for network troubleshooting, and seems to make AD not work at all when DNS is forwarded.

Personally, I have found the 4.2.2.2-4.2.2.6 DNS servers to be the best and fastest. Their response is even faster than google's 8.8.8.8.
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Old 09-15-2010, 09:49 AM
 
28,803 posts, read 47,593,875 times
Reputation: 37905
Quote:
Originally Posted by NHDave View Post
As mentions start with openDNS

This statement "My gut feeling is what they are using them for is OK" is what I typically hear from parents who don't want to actually say "I have no clue what they're doing" when they come in with a computer that's chock full of malware and god knows what else.
It's amazing what teenagers (both boys and girls) look at on the Internet. The things I've been called out to clean up would get an adult male arrested.

It's nice to see that someone is interested enough to ask for advice about controlling it.

Dougstech, I agree it would be nice to have the ability to turn off those ads. The problem is that if we could the advertisers would stop paying and OpenDNS would likely go away...
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