or any competitors? The kids are coming home from camp and we want the computers to be ready before they get home.
What age are these kids? I was a 14-year old boy a couple of years ago, and I could get through most security programs my school or parents cared to install.
The oldest is 14 but no computer geeks in the pack
I don’t think any stranger on the 'net could give you the right answer to this. It all depends on what kind of people your kids are.
When I was a kid, we didn’t have internet, but I was allowed to read and watch whatever I pleased. My parents knew that I was an intelligent, reasonable child who was quite clear on the lines between fantasy and reality. They knew they didn’t have to worry about what I was reading because I made good choices.
So, how much do you trust your kids? How mature are they? Are they the kind of kids for whom the forbidden has an incredible draw? Are they open and honest with you about what they’re exploring? Do they feel they can talk to you about anything without you freaking out? What do you feel they need to be protected from and why?
You don’t have to answer these questions to me: think about them yourself and therein lies your answer.
I’m not a big fan of the idea. You should talk with your kids about whatever stuff you don’t want them to look at instead of blocking it and pretending it doesn’t exist. Porn, hate sites, gore - they’ll be exposed to all of it sooner or later, and they’ll be better off if they know what they’re all about. Plus perfectly legitimate websites can get blacklisted, like ones on breast cancer for example.
We have it and the default does a lot of blocking. Anything with a shopping cart, many medical sites, etc.
It takes some time to configure it, but it is a protection.
I think it’s a bad idea.
Smothering overprotectiveness is not parenting.
And remember:
If you teach a child, by your actions, that he cannot be trusted, you will never be able to trust him/her. And he/she won’t trust you with their problems, either.
Don’t use a computer program to be a parent for you. Just talk with your kids.
Communicate! Darn it!
A parent is still the person a child respects/obeys the most. Explain to the child the kind of problems that exist online, ask the kid to respect your rules, and get on with your lives.
Your kids are better off understanding the dangers of the Web, or the World, than they would be if you tried to raise them in a glass case. The “glass case” approach leaves them easy prey once they reach 18, & know nothing of the ugly side of life.
Trouble is best avoided, when you can see it coming, Grasshopper.
I must be doing something wrong. I’ve been thinking about these questions for almost a day and I still can’t come up with a list of possible systems with advantages and disadvantages of each. 
Thanks for answering the question.
I want to make it more clear than I did in the OP that I’m looking for software advice, not parenting advice. In the past on SDMB I’ve asked several questions about how to deal with my kids and have valued the responses. But this time I’m pretty clear on what I want to do, but I do have some technical questions.
So back to the point. My kids live in a world where there are dangerous pockets of zero tolerance. When I was a kid I could curse, threaten, yell, do whatever I wanted with my friends, then get back to the football game or whatever. But if my kids curse or threaten via the Internet there’s a permanent record, and two of my kids have already gotten into a little bit of hot water over it.
So here’s what I’'m looking for. I’d like to periodically check up on my kids. Ideally I’ll tell them that any website they visit, any email they send, may be seen by me. And I’ll periodically check on what they’ve been up to. That’s all. I’m not looking to restrict them from anything at this point…maybe I will be after phase 1.
Is there a program that will help me with the above? Thanks.
PCMag.com, the website for PC Magazine, has reviews of parental control software in the April 4, 2006 issue. Safe Eyes 2006 from SafeBrowse was top-ranked. I just quickly looked at CNet for similar reviews but couldn’t find anything.
For those who were providing parenting advice, what I’d be worried about isn’t that the child would deliberately seek out inappropriate content, but that he or she might stumble across it accidentally. There’s stuff out there that will scare an adult, let alone an innocent kid.
What? It’s just the intarweb! Please explain? 
This is quite possibly the most disturbing thing I’ve read this week. In fact, since I can’t adequately express my thoughts on the subject, I’ve started a thread in a more appropriate venue so we can discuss it futher.
If there was, there is absolutely no way in hell I would ever help you find it, and I’d like to think most of the other members here would feel the same way.
Is there a reason for you to be concerned your kids will turn into internet porn junkies overnight, or are you simply being over-protective and paranoid?
And that’s a serious problem, folks. My grandfather died from accidentally looking at a dirty picture.
Plan B, what you’re looking for is a blocking program (like NetNanny) to shield them from seeing the bad bits. They’re all about the same and kids at 14 can normally get by them.
To help protect the PC from getting around the blocking software, you’ll want a high protection lock-down application. Something like Fortress.
To snoop on that they’re typing, a standard keylogger will do the trick. It will capture everything you type and dump it to a text file. Every email, url, and typo they make will be there for you. Some anti-virus software will try to delete keyloggers, so they can be tricky to install correctly.
You’ll want to put a password at bios level so the kids can’t boot it when you’re not around. If you can boot the computer from a floppy or CD, then they can get past anything you put into the sytem (even bypass everything listed above by running a bootable live CD like Knoppix)
You should rivet or padlock the case shut because you can bypass bios boot passwords with a single jumper on the motherboard.
Ah hell, who are we kidding. Kids are only a couple screws, a jumper and a Live-CD away from naked tits and dirty words on the Internets. If a kid wants around computer protection software they only need ask a friend at school.
You know what I did? I put the computer where I can see it and set up a few simple rules. For about 6 months I ran a keylogger in the background to spot check her use (I never told my daughter and that’s my right as a parent and owner of said computer). I’m happy to report all went just fine. She’s now 15 and I don’t have the keylogger anymore. I can get into her email and I’ve spot checked what was going on. Shock and Awe - there was in fact swearing and boy talk and dirty gossip. But nothing that I was innocent of at her age (I was worse).
Set up some rules and let them obey them. If they won’t follow the rules at home then they’ll just break them when you aren’t around to stop them. Teach them what is right and ok and let them decide if that’s the path they want to take.
I’ve seen 11 year olds disable Fortress in half an hour.
Blocking software doesn’t work, and spying on kids only causes them to get more creative and lose whatever trust they had in the person who spied on them.
l. Wrote obscenities in an email to a friend. Friend showed parents. Parents called me to complain.
- More complex…wrote something to a friend from school…friend told teacher…teacher got upset, raised a fuss…but not much happened.