SECURITY

Keep Kids Online Safely (Part 3)

2/15/2013 9:14:17 AM

Smartphone and tablet

Windows is not the only OS that kids may use nowadays. With the overgrowth of smartphones and tablets, children can enter most of contents that you may have blocked in PC or laptop.

An easy way to restrict Internet access and any other contact is to activate flight mode before handling the device to your kids. However, knowledgeable kids will easily find ways disabling this.

Description: With the overgrowth of smartphones and tablets, children can enter most of contents that you may have blocked in PC or laptop.

With the overgrowth of smartphones and tablets, children can enter most of contents that you may have blocked in PC or laptop.

Windows Phone 8

Mobile operating systems are different in parental-controls. Meanwhile, Windows Phone 8 is leading the group with Kid’s Corner. This is a sandbox where kids can only enter apps, games, music and videos that you chose for them.

Configuring Kid’s Corner is simple, and your kid can access it by sliding leftward instead of sliding upward in the lock screen. If sliding upward, they will see a common PIN input screen, and there will be no access to main features of the phone. It’s ideal when you want to share the phone with kids.

To enable Kid’s Corner, go to Settings, then Kid’s Corner. You also can type each app, game, video and music that you want your kids to play.

iOS

Apple added some parental controls for iOS, but they will apply to anyone using iPhone, iPad or iPod touch – not only for children.

To configure iPhone, iPad or iPod touch for your kids to use, type Settings, General, Restrictions. You will have to input PIN in order to activate restriction, preventing kids from crossing over it.

You can also disable default apps such as Safari, but you can restrict other apps by their age ratings (or not allow full access). Similarly, you can restrict film according to age, TV shows and music by Caution ratings and podcast with clear content.

You will surely want to disable location service for social networks. There’re other privacy settings preventing apps from accessing data, and you can disable multi-player games by adding new friends in Game Center.

Safari itself doesn’t have parental controls, but you can disable it and install other browsers, such as AVG’s Family Safety. This is a free app preventing websites that are unsuitable and harmful.

It’s smart to disable in-app purchases, as well as installation possibility.

A new feature in iOS 6.0 is Guided Access. It, in fact, disables all hardware buttons when an app is opened, stopping children from entering any other things. You will find the setting in General, Accessibility.

When activated, press Home button 3 times after executing an app in order to activate Guided Access. Then you can draw onto the screen to disable specific areas. Click Options button to disable touch sensitivity completely.

Android

Google Android OS doesn’t have much thing to do with parental controls, though Google Play store offers content filter. This means that you can restrict downloadable contents. To perform this, just execute Google Play, then click on Menu and choose Setting, Content Filtering. You also can categorize apps in class of low, medium or high maturity.

It partly prevents children from downloading unsuitable apps, but there’re many other installable apps which enable you to perform a more comprehensive work.

Consider Kid Mode. It offers something like Kid’s Corner of Windows Phone 8. It allows kids to play favorite Android games, read newspapers and draw, but there is no way to buy something by chance, such as erasing email or entering other apps.

There’re also parental-control apps in Google Play. Most of them are free. We suggest apps from well-known Kaspersky, Norton and Funamo.

Description: Google Play store offers something like Kid’s Corner of Windows Phone 8.

Google Play store offers something like Kid’s Corner of Windows Phone 8.

Use OpenDNS

A great method to activate website filtering for devices connected to Internet via wide-bandwidth router is to use OpenDNS.

Instead of using DNS servers provided by ISP, you will use OpenDNS's servers.

In fact, you just need to make a small change in settings of router, and any device being connected to the Internet via you home network will be routed via OpenDNS system which filters websites. It costs free, and can configure low or high blocking level as well as control which sections of the website will be blocked, including any fraudulent websites.

To use OpenDNS, you first have to register a free account.

Clearly, any settings you make will apply to all members of the family, thus you can’t block some websites for your kids, but you yourself are able to enter them via the similar router.

 

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