Any parents concerned about children’s safety is going to keep an eye on what their kids do online — be it to protect them from predators, keep them from visiting inappropriate Web sites, prevent downloading of harmful software, or some combination of all three.
Computer security company Symantec recently introduced Internet watchdog software, OnlineFamily.Norton, aimed at assisting in the effort. But rather than just helping parents spy, Symantec says the software is designed to foster household cooperation, incorporating features that encourage kids and parents to have a dialogue about what sites are being visited.
Symantec’s Web monitoring software relies heavily on a Web site, www.onlinefamily.norton.com, that parents can use to set parameters for their children’s Web visits, then check on where they ended up. There’s still software to install; a downloadable program called the Safety Minder collects information about where a child has been online. But parents interact with the software through the OnlineFamily site after creating an account they can access from any PC running Microsoft’s Windows or from an Apple Mac.
Working Out the Kinks
Using the software, parents assign names to each person’s computer log-in. I tested the software on a PC running Windows Vista and found OnlineFamily.Norton delivered simple-to-understand summaries of the sites visited by each logged-in user. But the software is overly restrictive at times. Facebook is blocked by default, for example. And unblocking sites took several hours, which could be too slow if a child needs immediate access to a site, for instance to complete a school assignment. And there were glitches; in one instance, the activity summary for one account I set up simply wouldn’t load.
Symantec has some time to work out the kinks. OnlineFamily is free until Jan. 1, when the company plans to start charging about $60 a year for a subscription.
The company’s pitch centers…