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Monitor and restrict your child’s activities online, remotely, with Care4teen

March 1, 2012 By 11 Comments

Care4Teen is a free internet monitoring and censoring program that combines some principles of anti-virus recognition software with the standard online monitoring functions. Still in early stages, Care4Teen shows promise as a great bit of freeware in the future.

When I consider what program to use to protect my children online, I take a hard look at what is out there and try to determine which one is the best bet based on a number of factors.

These consist, generally, of: ease of use, power and function, and price tag. Care4Teen is a fairly new program in this realm, but even so, it shows some great potential for the future by thinking outside the box and attempting to approach the subject from a slightly different angle.

As far as ease of use goes, Care4Teen gets full marks. The program essentially, acts as a configurable firewall between your computer and your ISP connection, filtering incoming data and pages, as well as recording them for later perusal. Each section of the program is intuitive in its use, as the title for each section pretty well explains what it is all about. Navigating between different sections is also easy, consisting of a simple click. Overall, Care4Teen is one of the easiest programs of its type that I have seen.

Care4Teen Screen 1Care4Teen Screen 2

For power and function, Care4Teen shows more potential at the moment than actual solid value. The reason for this is as follows: Care4Teen relies on a database stored on their servers to help block out different sites that may have objectionable content. This database is built, over time, by the sites and programs that the users (parents) enter into their own monitoring page. So, if a parent decides to list “Pornusa.com” as a site that is forbidden to access on their computer, that same website will be added to the Care4Teen database and can now be recognized as a possible site containing unwanted content.

Care4Teen Screen 3Care4Teen Screen 4

Now, as you can imagine, there are so many sites out there that there’s no way one user could possibly add them all to his or her list, which is why the database exists. This is the same kind of idea that many anti-virus programs use to identify possible threats to your system. When a new site or program is visited or activated, it is scanned into the database so that all users in the future can benefit from it. People who do not understand this method, and are expecting a more straightforward “pornblocking” program are going to be disappointed. People who can appreciate the underlying genius of this system will be happy.

Care4Teen Screen 5

Now, this does raise the question: What happens, then, if the site or program my kid tries to run isn’t on the list yet? Well, first of all, there’s tons of ways to discover what sites your kids have been visiting that you don’t want them to see, and add those to your restricted list, but if they do happen across one you haven’t caught yet, they may think they have gotten away with it because the program didn’t block it. Nothing could be further from the truth, because Care4Teen also takes random screen shots and video clips every so often of what is happening on the account. That means that if you kid manages to find an objectionable site that you didn’t know about and it isn’t in the growing database, you can still see what they have done and act accordingly. You can add that site to your list, and it will go the database, to be detected by all other users of the program. Essentially, this means that your kid could actually be helping you to keep them safe, by showing ‘chinks in the armor’ so to speak. Once they understand what you’re doing, they will most likely stop, but it’s worth letting them know that big brother is everywhere, in my opinion. Given that Care4Teen is also accessible via mobile device, this isn’t really hyperbole, it’s literal.

Care4Teen Screen 6

The verdict: Care4Teen is a great program when you consider its cost combined with its innovative ideas. At the moment, the database still has some large holes in it, but that is changing on a daily basis, as you can see from the home page statistics listed there. It is certainly worth checking out the demo, if you’re looking for a program to help keep the kids off sites and programs you don’t want them using.

Until next time, my friends!

Check out Care4Teen here.


 
 
 
B.C. Tietjens

B.C. Tietjens

Born and raised overseas in a military family, B.C. Tietjens visited and lived in many places all over the world. He has worked on a number of publications and enjoys writing for different audiences, on such diverse subjects as relationships, technology, prestidigitation, self-improvement, entertaining children, and biographical stories. He currently writes primarily for Freewaregenius and enjoys the heck out of it.
March 1, 2012
B.C. Tietjens
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  • http://carbonize.co.uk Carbonize

    I still prefer Microsoft Family Safety. If your child is on Windows 7 you can even see what programs they have been using and their contacts. It also lists every URL they have visited, blocked or not. It also lets them send a request if a page they try to view is blocked so the parent can unblock it via a link in the email.

  • Andysnat

    Imagine the sort of sites that a bible thumping, home schooling parent in the Deep South Bible belt hicksville USA will be blocking – the database will be useless.

  • Toni

    Hmmm. I don’t think spying on your kids with secret screenshots or putting everything he or she does in a database is a good way to go. Besides that, I agree with Andysnat, parents have very different ideas about what is morally right for children. If it takes just one parent to add a site to the database, it might turn into a very weird and paranoid database in time.

  • http://paleografie.tk Cerberus

    Toni and Andy, very good point. It is like a man whose younger mistress pulls out his grey hairs, while his wife pulls out his black hairs…he will be bald. I presume the metaphor is clear. But perhaps they have some kind of way of checking the sites on the list for porn or something?

  • http://carbonize.co.uk Carbonize

    The only way you can cover all bases is to switch your DNS to OpenDNS. OpenDNS has a huge range of categories you can block and not just adult sites. The categories have things like academic fraud, blogs, photo sharing, proxies, pornography, tasteless, instant messaging, health etc.

  • Papagoejoe

    Stop promoting these paranoia-tools!! This will harm your relationship to your child.

    Talk to your child instead. Have respectful discussions of right and wrong.

    These tools will simply show your child, that you do not trust them, and you are giving them a valid reason not to trust you.

  • http://carbonize.co.uk Carbonize

    @Papagoejoe – Do you have any children? It’s the nature of teenagers to rebel and to see how far they can push things. And you’re not just blocking porn, you’re blocking a main source of malware.

    I would love to see you explaining to a teenage boy, who’s hormones are raging, why he shouldn’t be looking at women that way.

  • Toni

    I don’t disagree with the blocking tools. Children are just not allowed to go and see anything they want. You just don’t alllow your 12 year old in a discotheque. They will be stopped at the door anyway. But the internet allows them unlimited access to everywhere and everything.

    It’s the spying part that I think is not good.
    And I really think talking with kids is the way to go. You can’t stop a teenager from looking at porn, no matter what tools, as you can’t control how he is talking with friends in the schoolyard. But you can tell him it’s is not normal sex and woman should always be treated with respect. He may not understand the full meaning yet, but he will not understand the forbidding either.

    And yes, I must admit it’s easy talking for me cause I don’t have kids :-)

  • http://paleografie.tk Cerberus

    Yeah children will get porn no matter what at a certain age. I would perhaps not let a primary-school child use the internet unsupervised; but after that, let them browse porn: what harm can it do? Your suggestion to talk to your child about what porn is and that it’s not the normal way between two people sounds like a very good idea. The spying may be considered immoral by a great many people.

  • B.C. Tietjens

    Bearing in mind that this is just MY personal opinion, based on my extensive experience with my own children as well as others: the simple fact of the matter is that I DO NOT trust them. They are children, and therefore the only thing I can really trust about them is that they are going to make mistakes and get into trouble without proper guidance and guarding on my part as a parent and a responsible adult. HOW I choose to guide and protect them is my right and duty as a parent.

    I think talking to children is important, especially as they begin to get older and see more of the unsavory things in the world. However, I also think that just talking to them is not enough. I feel it is important to try and protect and guide them from every possible angle and direction, because they are certainly going to be exploring the world in every way they can. Cover all the bases and try to catch those foul balls before they hit ground, to use a baseball metaphor.

    In the end result, I believe in the rights of all parents to raise their children as they see fit, and I will vehemently support that right, even if I don’t agree with the particular methods being used. I am not “promoting” these monitoring tools. I am reviewing them and offering my opinion. If someone disagrees with my opinion, that is great! Discourse and discussion are healthy, but it doesn’t give anyone leave to imply my motives are less than benevolent.

    Having said all that; thanks to everyone who read this post and commented. Conversations like this are one of the highlights of my day when I get to take part in them.

    ~B.C.

  • Papagoejoe

    @Carbonize: No, but unlike you I used to be a teenager.. They will look at porn, whether you wan’t them to or not.. That’s why these paranoia tools a basically useless, and if they have any effect at all, it will be for the worse and not for the better.

    Your teen is probably way better than you in both finding porn and avoiding malware.. They grew up with the internet, and you didn’t. New porn sites and proxy services are popping up every day. Are you going to block them all? You would have to block the entire internet, and they would still find a way to get online (smart phones etc.)

    All this just to avoid the hard work of actually raising your kids. Spying on anyone is a way worse offense than watching internet porn. If you use these tools, you teen will see you as the bad guy, and they will be right.

    Tl;dr: This will seriously harm the relationship to your offspring.