The top 2024 parental control applications, as determined by our editors. The great thing about the internet is that it offers a plethora of knowledge for your children to explore. Sadly, not everything they find will be appropriate for them. Cyberbullying by peers and the risks associated with connecting with strangers can be commonplace in online activities. Given how much time kids and teenagers spend online these days, keeping them safe is more complex than ever.
However, children require and desire to feel safe. In May 2022, 62% of US teenagers participated in a Pew Research Centre study in which they stated that “people being able to feel welcome safe online important people being to speak their minds freely online.” By installing a parental control app on their smartphones, tablets, and other devices, parents may monitor their online activities, conversations, and whereabouts and contribute to their child’s safety online.
We spent five weeks testing five of these parental control applications to determine which one is best. We tested OurPact Premium+, Qustodio Premium Small, Mobicip Premium, Net Nanny, and Kaspersky Safe Kids. After extensive testing, we discovered that Kaspersky Safe Kids stood out as the best option because of its capacity to combine with additional protection services.
Kaspersky Safe Children
One advantage of utilizing Kaspersky Safe Kids is that should you want to do so; you may safeguard your whole digital environment with only one suite of security products from Kaspersky, which Safe Kids connects with.
We headed download an iOS app for our child’s smartphone. Installation and setup were straightforward, even if we had to adjust a few gadget settings.
Although not as user-friendly as Qustodio’s, we felt its user interface (UI) needed to be more logical and straightforward. We had access to geofencing and comprehensive, round-the-clock location tracking using the Kaspersky Safe Kids app.
Using Safe Search to monitor online activity prevented offensive content from appearing in searches on Bing, Google, Mail.ru, Yahoo, and Yandex. It can also prevent offensive websites from appearing in Android, iOS, and Windows search results, as we demonstrated on iOS. Age restrictions can also restrict or prevent the usage of apps depending on user-rated, age-appropriate content. The top 2024 parental control applications, as determined by our editors.
We saw that we can switch social media monitoring on or off. The Reports section beneath each function and the Advice For Parents content section on each function page were also well-liked by us.
How to ensure your children’s internet safety
The features and functionalities of parental control applications are evolving to keep up with the growing hazards to children in their daily lives and online. Parental control applications work best when used with a clear awareness of internet security, safety, and privacy and as a cooperative tool with your children. Several recommended strategies for secure online behaviour consist of the following:
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First best practice: Use caution when posting. Since the internet never goes away, it might return and harm your reputation, job, or both.
Optimal methodology 2. Acquire the vocabulary. Smishing is a combination of “phishing” and “SMS,” or short messaging services commonly referred to as texting. Learn the differences between phishing and smishing scams and how to spot and steer clear. For starters, Kaspersky provides a helpful explanation of smishing.
Optimal methodology 3. Consistently update. Update and patch all of the devices in your family.
Optimal methodology 4: Carefully source your information. Make sure the sources of the information you are researching are reliable.
In addition to these recommended behaviours, the Mayo Clinic provides additional actions you can take to support your teen’s responsible use of social media and mitigate some of its negative consequences in its blog post “Teens and social media use: What’s the impact?” Think about these suggestions:
Tip 1: Establish fair boundaries. Talk with your adolescent about ways to prevent social media from interfering with their sleep, food, activities, or homework. Encourage teenagers to avoid using electronic media before bed, and don’t allow them to use tablets or mobile phones in their beds. Set a good example by abiding by these guidelines.
Tip 2: Keep an eye on your adolescent’s accounts. Inform your adolescent that you will be monitoring their social media pages frequently. You may try to do it at least once per week. Make sure you carry it out.
Tip 3: Describe what is unacceptable. Teach your adolescent not to engage in online or offline gossiping, rumour spreading, bullying, or reputation-damaging behaviour. Discuss the proper and secure content to post on social media with your adolescent.
Tip 4: Promote in-person interactions with friends. This is especially crucial for teenagers who may be at risk for social anxiety disorder.
Tip 5: Bring up social media. Discuss your usage of social media. Please inquire about their social media use and feelings about it with your adolescent. Tell your teenager that there are a lot of unrealistic pictures on social media. “Talk to your child’s health care provider think experiencing signs or symptoms of anxiety or depression related to social media use,” advises the Mayo Clinic.
How our examination was conducted
During our pre-testing investigation, we discovered that there is a wide variety of parental control applications accessible. We made sure all five options were the paid versions before choosing them.
As our testing environment consisted of a recently released iPhone and a MacBook Pro laptop running MacOS Monterey version 12, we ensured that all five of the apps we evaluated were compatible with iOS devices.
We registered for an account and started the sign-up procedure with each app before we began testing. We downloaded all of the apps on our laptop and smartphone. We tried each app for five weeks, one week for each app. The top 2024 parental control applications, as determined by our editors.
The following factors guided our testing of each one: simplicity in setup and installation, usability, design, and functionality available.
Our first focus was on simplicity of setup and installation. Subsequently, we concentrated on usability, including dashboard designs and reporting functionalities, since intricacy breeds dissatisfaction, and optimal instruments are those you will genuinely use.
We then carefully examined their email and text tracking features. Exploring every aspect of internet use, such as social media monitoring, online searches, watching, and blocking, came next. The controls for controlling program downloads and customizing screen time were examined for each.
Finally, because not all threats are available online, we also looked at their geofencing features, incoming call restrictions, location and speed monitoring, and other features.
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We also examined other parental control programs at Mobicip, such as Mobicip Premium, which costs $10 $8 a month (paid yearly at $96) for 20 monitored devices.
After setting it up on our Parent smartphone, we added a co-parent to our Mobicip Premium account. We then downloaded the software and app manager from the software Store to configure our Child’s device.
We saw that it eliminated mobile device management (MDM) from our device and necessitated disabling the Find My function inside the iPhone’s configuration. We might choose to only “monitor” the gadget or to “monitor and manage.” The top 2024 parental control applications, as determined by our editors.
The screen time control and monitoring features of Mobicip Premium were excellent, as was their social media monitoring. We also discovered its location tracking, website content control, and app-banning features were relatively strong. We observed that geofencing is not available in the app.
We enjoyed Mobicip Premium’s extensive cross-platform compatibility. It works with Windows, macOS, iOS, Android, and Kindle devices.