Protecting your children from the internet's darker side while giving them the freedom to use the good sites is a difficult job. There are plenty of applications that filter content deemed inappropriate. However, The Internet BabySitter monitors all internet traffic.
SoftwareXpress recommends that you tell your children you have installed the software, so they resist internet activity that you might not be happy about. To stop anyone disabling it, The Internet BabySitter has a stealth installation; in fact, you can access it only through the Run command.
The software is certainly thorough when it comes to monitoring. It acts as a key-logger, so it logs everything your children type into the PC and sorts the logs by application. It also logs all chats and records all incoming and outgoing email. Website monitoring logs all web addresses and searches. While this lets you see what's going on, it introduces a big problem: data overload. Looking through all the logs for dangerous sites or chats is a laborious process.
The threat of being monitored might stop most children accessing sites they shouldn't, but it doesn't stop a child receiving offensive emails or being redirected to unsavoury sites. Logging events feels like a case of shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted. Applications such as McAfee's Privacy Service (£25 including VAT, www.mcafee.co.uk) block offensive websites, chats and emails before they reach your child, which is better. By blocking this content, your children are kept safe without you spying on every internet step, even those that are legitimate.
The Internet BabySitter's manual approach and log-everything attitude does nothing to protect children from threats as they happen. We recommend Privacy Service or McAfee's Internet Security Suite (£50 including VAT), which has anti-virus software and a firewall.
Requires Windows 98 or above, 233MHz processor, 64MB RAMAuthor: Ursula Seymour
Satwareexpress The Internet BabySitter