Parental Software
December, 23. 1996

Are you concerned about what your children are viewing when they are surfing the 'Net ? You aren't ? Then your children are either grown up or you don't know about the material they might be viewing. I don't want to discuss topics on sexual explicit material on the Internet over and over. Instead I will give you some links to sites that have already done so far or where you can obtain software, which will deny access to material not suitable for your children.

If you don't want to spend money, then you should consider using Microsoft Internet Explorer as your Web Browser. Internet Explorer has a built in feature to block access to offending sites. But: This mechanism relies on the author of pages offering sexual information to implement a rating system. I'm positive that Netscape will also implement this feature (to stay in competition with Microsoft). But unless a common rating system has been developed, these are your only two choices, except for watching your kids visually when they surf the net.

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* SafeSurf
Address: http://www.safesurf.com/
This site discusses how authors themselves can rate their sites, which certainly would be the best and cheapest way.

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* The Internet Filter
Address: http://www.xmission.com/~seer/jdksoftware/netfilt.html
The Internet Filter software blocks out access to information not suitable for children. The first version can be downloaded freely and comes ready configured with lots of sites, your kids should not connect to. Also it logs all activities.

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* Surf Watch
Address: http://www.surfwatch.com/
This software has a Mac and Windows version available and blocks access to WWW, Ftp, Gopher, News and Chat locations not suitable.

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* Netnanny
Address: http://www.netnanny.com/netnanny/
This is the homepage of a commercial program with lots of features like activity logging and more.

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* Cybersitter
Address: http://www.solidoak.com/

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* Cyber Patrol
Address: http://www.microsys.com/CYBER/

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* Web Track
Address: http://www.webster.com/

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© 1996 Christian Feichtner
Redistribution without prior permission prohibited.
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