Top 5 Parent-Friendly Cybersecurity Apps: Finding the Perfect MalwareFox Alternative

“In this post, I’ll share the five best parental control software that will help you keep your child safe from the uncensored Internet and supervise them online.”

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As a parent, it can be quite stressful to think of all the faceless beasts out there who can harm your child while they are online. Yes, the truth is today’s children spend a majority of their time online, and they may encounter distasteful or inappropriate content (content that promotes racism, hate, violence, cyberbullying, p*rn).

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While you can’t always sit with your child or have a physical presence over what content they choose to watch, the parental control software can help you save your child from the harmful uncensored internet and its repercussions. This software will help you restrict the type of content your children view, monitor their activity, or merely limit the screen size for their usage.

Let’s start with the basics…

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What is a Parental Control Software?

In simple words, parental control software is a shield between your child and the harmful, inappropriate content on the Internet. With this software, you can restrict the content they watch on the Internet, monitor their online behavior, and even track their social media activity.

Children are innocent and need protection. You can become vigilant and proactive by installing parental control software on your home devices and ensuring your child’s safety online. While nothing gives 100% protection like good communication, these tools will help filter unwanted content covering a broad range of offensive and dangerous categories for your child.

Without much ado, let’s get to the list of the 5 best parental control software for the protection of your children and family.

Top 5 Parental Control Software for Windows

Qustodio | Free & Paid

Qustodio is one of the best Parental Control software offering a plethora of features to protect your children. With Qustodio, you can understand how your child uses the web, manage their online activity, and protect them by blocking unwanted sites and content on the internet.

Qustodio requires a quick 5 minutes installation and offers powerful features like real-time protection which can block the worst content even in private or incognito mode. Other features include setting a time limit or schedule for Internet usage, blocking apps, and tracking your child’s location.

In case of emergencies, your kid can use the panic button to intimate you of their location. With the paid version of the app, you get extended features like tracking your child’s SMS and phone logs. You can even set up a custom list of blocked contacts to protect your children from bullies and child sex offenders.

Get Qustodio for real-time protection, easy user interface, and protection of your children on the go.

Pros	Cons
Smart content filtering	The iOS version has limited functionality
Wide range of supported platform	Slightly expensive
Excellent social media monitoring	No Geofencing
Tracking of calls and text on AndroidApps and games monitoring
Panic button and location tracking

Pricing- Free (Limited Features), 5 Device – $54.95, 10 Device – $96.95, 15 Device – $137.95 / Year

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Kaspersky Safe Kids | Free & Paid

Kaspersky Safe Kids is an affordable parental control tool that provides a safe internet environment for your kids. It offers the controls via an app on your mobile device and also provides an online platform to customize the settings and view reports. The tool lets you manage the usage of apps and screen time. Its strong content filter protects the kids from adult and harmful content.

Kaspersky Safe Kids lets you track the location of your kids and set a safe area for them to roam. If the kids go beyond the set area, you get an alert. The tool also informs you about their battery status, so that they don’t go beyond touch. If your kids use the Android device, then you can also watch their contacts, calls, and text messages to ensure they are not in touch with suspicious strangers.

The full reports of this tool let you know the activity of kids like their app usage, website accessed, and Facebook activity. You can access their reports from the app on your mobile or can visit the online interface.

With the content filter you can block specific categories like Adult content, and also can warn them of potentially dangerous content like Software, audio, and video. This excellent tool comes in a free version too.

The free version has screen time management, app usage control, and content feature, while the paid version comes with all features.

Pros	Cons
Content Filter can block or warn	Calls and text monitoring do not work on iOS
Unlimited device and kids’ profile	Control App doesn’t support iOS
Impressive online interface
Geofencing, calls, and text monitoring
Low battery alert
Social media monitoring
Affordable pricing

Pricing – Free (Limited Features), $15 / Year (Unlimited devices)

Norton Family Premier | Paid

Norton Family Premier is an easy-to-manage parental tool that helps you to put an eye on the internet activities of your kids. It supports Windows, iOS, and Android devices, but doesn’t work on macOS. So, if your kids use Mac, then this software is not for you. For other devices, it consists of all the necessary features to watch your children.

It helps you to supervise the search, browse and screen time activity of the kids. You can allot time limits for each device. You can set limits for each day or weekly basis. With the help of this feature, you let your kids develop a healthy habit of using electronic devices.

You can monitor the social media usage time of your children and can also supervise if your kids share sensitive information like phone numbers, email, addresses, or school names. It also lets you track the video activity of your kids on YouTube.

Norton Family Premier on Android devices lets you block certain apps and also monitor text messages. You can allow specific contacts to whom they can send text messages. Also, you can track the location of your kids with their Android and iOS devices with a history of 30 days.

It also enables you to lock the devices so that your kids can enjoy family time. Kids can contact parents in lock mode.

Pros	Cons
Unlimited devices and profiles	The iOS version has limited functionality
Location tracking	Doesn’t support macOS
Settings apply to all devices for a child	Inefficient content blocking on HTTPS sites
Tracking of text on Android	No Geofences
Apps and social media time usage
Lock button for parents

Pricing – $ 49.99 / Year (Unlimited Devices)

Net Nanny | Paid

Net Nanny is an excellent tool to manage and monitor the activity of your children on various devices. It has the most potent and effective content filtering feature. It started its journey in 1996, and since then it is improving its features. Net Nanny supports multiple devices like Windows PC, Mac PC, Android, and iOS.

It lets you manage and monitor the internet activity of your children from the app or the web interface. Its content filtering enables you to filter 18 different categories including pornographic content. You can either block, allow, or warn for a particular type of content. It also removes vulgar language from the accessed pages.

It lets you schedule the time of the internet usage of the kids to enjoy family time together. You can turn off the internet at dinner time, or sleeping time.

You can manage the usage of popular social networking sites. It sends you an alert if your kid is trying to access inappropriate websites or if some stranger is contacting your kids.

Your kids can also request to access a blocked website, and you can remotely approve the request by allowing that URL.

Pros	Cons
Content Filter can block or warn	No location tracking and geofencing
Remote management and monitoring	No text and calls monitoring
Apps and Games management for android	No app control for iOS
The Internet time limit applies to all devices	Expensive plans
Alerts and Reports by Email

Pricing – 1 Device – $39.99 (Mac or Windows), 5 Device- $59.99, 10 Device- $89.99 / Year

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uKnowKids Premier | Paid

uKnowKids Premier is another best parental control software to ensure the safety of children online. If your children use iOS devices, then this tool is the best option for you. It monitors the calls and text messages on iPhone. If your kid deletes an SMS/MMS, then it can also recover that. It also lets you know what apps your kids are using. No other parental control software offers such features for iOS devices.

You can also check the photos sent to a message or stored on the phone to ensure that your children are not sharing inappropriate pictures. It also lets you monitor the contacts on the device to make sure the kids are not contacting strangers.

uKnowKids provides the most extensive social media monitoring. It helps you to monitor the shared pictures, posts, videos, and photos on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. It also reveals the hidden or secret profile if your kids have one.

The tool also helps you to know the current location of your children with scheduled auto check-ins. You can also create geofence and receive the alert if your kids go beyond the set area.

Pros	Cons
Text & Calls monitoring on android and iOS	Only works on Android phones and iOS devices
Checks posts & photos on social media	iOS text and call monitoring need regular iCloud backup.
Monitors apps & game usage	Does not filter content, only lets you monitor it
Recovers deleted texts	Expensive subscription charges
Location tracking & geofence

Pricing – Android Device $140 / Year, Android & Apple – $140 / Year + $50 one-time (for 8 Kids)

Bonus: Windows Live Family Safety | Free

Microsoft has included a built-in safety utility tool for maintaining your kids’ online safety in Windows 10. First, you need to set up your account at Microsoft and then ensure your children have an outlook account as well. Now, once that is covered, you are now able to protect your children online using Windows Live Family Safety.

Windows Live Family Safety is an essential tool for the protection of your child from exposure to some of the false and gruesome ideas out there on the dark web that may even victimize your child.

For using Windows Live Family Safety, visit the Accounts Option in Settings. Click on Add a Family Member. Then, select Child Account. Just add your child’s outlook email id, and after completing, you can navigate to Manage Family Settings Online and make custom changes per child account.

Some of the things you can do include blocking inappropriate websites, setting screen time, viewing their recent activity, and getting weekly reports on your child’s online behavior.

5 Best Parental Control Software: Our Verdict

While Windows 10 has a built-in Parental control feature available, you might want something more powerful to protect your kids from Internet predators and other harmful content. My choice of Parental Control software has to be Qustodio. It has strong content filtering technology and monitoring tools. The panic button in the Qustodio is what attracts me. If the kid is in any danger he/she could press the panic button and we could reach out to them for help.

If you are looking for an affordable yet strong parental control tool then Kaspersky Safe Kids is the best option for you. If your kids mainly use iOS devices then you can also consider uKnowKids Premier.

However, I would like to mention that while parental control software will help you shield your children from the dark web and objectionable content, there is nothing better than a real conversation.

Sit your kids down and teach them the difference between right and wrong and share the consequences of wrong online choices with them to make them aware and smart individuals who will make wise decisions on their own.

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Top 5 Parent-Friendly Cybersecurity Apps: Finding the Perfect MalwareFox Alternative