Safe PC use for kids: tools, settings, recommendations

[EscapeCalifornia]

I think my ideal setup would be a local box that applies different rules based on the PC's mac or IP address. So you could lock down the kids computers but leave the adults computers unfiltered. Does anyone know of such a solution that isn't aimed at enterprise networks and doesn't cost an arm an a leg.

[swagger]

Originally Posted by EscapeCalifornia

I think my ideal setup would be a local box that applies different rules based on the PC's mac or IP address. So you could lock down the kids computers but leave the adults computers unfiltered. Does anyone know of such a solution that isn't aimed at enterprise networks and doesn't cost an arm an a leg.

You should be able to do this fairly easily (assuming you have the requisite technical skills, which I think you do based on previous posts) using a linux box, squid and bind, with dhcpd thrown in for good measure.

I had a whitelist-only setup for the kids for a while using squid. Maintaining the whitelist got to be a pain, so I dropped the whitelist and now I just proxy everything and keep an eye on the logs. They only have to get caught once to know that you're always watching...

[f_m]

How to use parental controls in Windows

This is for Win7

[Charles]

Just reading through these posts now.....do the windows safety programs work with firefox or just IE?

[Trucker7]

DansGuardian works pretty good. Unfortunately, it only runs on Linux, Mac OS, and other Unixes, not on Windows.