Thursday, December 1, 2011

Steps to Take to Keep the Internet Safe

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If you have internet access for your children then you have provided them with the most powerful tool for learning in the world. The internet is a window to the world that allows anyone to contribute ideas, creativity and information and anyone else to easily access that data. At the same time this is now becoming a crucial part of how business is done and it's highly important that your children learn to use the internet so that they can stay ahead of the game and apply for the best jobs.
That said though there are a lot of threats out there on the web and we hear about them constantly. From explicit pornography to stalkers and dangerous strangers, all of the threats of the real world are brought into your child's bedroom when they go online. So how can you protect them?
Fortunately there are a few different steps you can take to keep your children safe when they go online. Here we will look at what those are.
Parental Control: The first one is to use parental control on your internet. This allows you to block both specific websites and keywords that appear on those pages. You might then block swear words or other things. This is a powerful tool for restricting adult parts of the web, but remember you need to allow some keywords or your children won't be able to use the web normally either.
Computer Monitoring Software: Using computer monitoring software it is possible to keep an eye on what your children use the computer for and this way guide them in the correct direction. Some people will use computer monitoring software and then shout at their children for using sites they know they shouldn't, but a more effective method would be to keep the computer monitoring software a secret - and then to simply use your parental control to block the sites they are looking at that they shouldn't be. If they don't know it's running then they won't know to disable it.
Move the Computer: If your computer is currently in the children's room, or in the study, then this will give them the ability to go online without your supervision. This is a definite downside of wireless internet, so all you need to do is to move the computer into the living room or another communal area where you can look over their shoulder when they are browsing the web.
Beware Other Devices: So you've blocked the bad websites on the main computer, and you watch your children every time they use it. That doesn't necessarily mean you're safe however, because they can still access the data on their other devices such as their Xbox or their iPhone and then transfer the videos and images to the main computer. Think about the other devices they can use to access the internet and then make sure to monitor these as well. If necessary you might have to prevent them from using a smartphone.
Using parental control and computer monitoring software you can help to protect your children when they are online. Follow the links for more details.
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