FILTERING SOFTWARE

DISTRACTING CURIOUS YOUNG MINDS


There is a considerable amount of material on the net which parents may consider unsuitable for their children to view. The most obvious, and certainly that which gains most publicity, is sexual content. There is also violence, along with more subtle 'dangers' such as the cult religions and fringe subjects.

There are two technical approaches to preventing children from accessing such material:-

• Software which filters access, according to a list, allowed or denied sites (these are listed below).

• Content Selection, where each page is rated by the author and then filtered according to parameters set in the browser. This system is still in its infancy, however, and there are some flaws to the system, which it seems are yet to be ironed out.

Web Filtering Software:

Below is a list of software which is intended to limit the sites that a user may visit. They either allow you to set up a list of specified sites (a white list) or prohibit the visiting of certain sites using a blacklist. The software authors provide the blacklist with continual updates, which usually cost extra. Don't, however, place too much reliance in these tools - they should go hand in hand with parental supervision. Although they all concentrate on the Web, the greater threat is from IRC, which is unregulated, and furthermore completely uncensorable.

FAMILY FILTERING SOFTWARE: Net Nanny Cyber Sitter Cyber Patrol Surf Watch Web Track Safe Surf

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