parent-monitorParental Computer Monitoring Software can be a huge life saver for parents. Whether you have a six year old or a sixteen year old, trouble can always be found on the internet. You might be worried about your six year old accidentally clicking on an ad they shouldn’t, or you might be worried about your sixteen year old purposefully looking up adult related material when they shouldn’t. Whatever the issue, computer monitoring software and parental controls can help.

Computer Monitoring Software and Parental Control Software are usually two different types of application, although sometimes you can find them combined into one. If you’re not sure the difference, we’ll go through what each one does now, followed by a few recommendations.

Computer Monitoring Software – as the name implies – simply monitors the computer it’s installed on, and it won’t interfere in the users activities in any way. When it’s running it’s completely hidden, so that anyone using the computer won’t know they’re being monitored. It will create reports of any websites visited and any applications used; anything typed and anything printed; and any document and file activity. The software will also take screen shots, so that with all of this information (including dates and times of activities) you’ll be able to see exactly what’s been going on that computer.

Parental Control Software can work well when used with Computer Monitoring Software (as mentioned above some companies combine the two). This type of software will limit what children can see when they’re surfing the net. Parental Control Software will scan a web page before it’s displayed, for any adult content. If it finds any the page will be blocked. You can usually customize Parental Control Software (and Computer Monitoring Software) to suit your precise needs, depending on the age of your child(ren).

Popular companies who provide Computer Monitoring Software include Webwatcher, Gecko Monitor & Spytech. Each has it’s own pros and cons, but all three are leaders in the industry and are brilliant at what they do. Net Nanny, Qustodio and K9 are the leaders in the Parental Control arena, and again, each do things slightly differently but they are all great products.

Gecko Parents also provides a Parental Control Application which when bought with Gecko Monitor (the computer monitoring software) has a decent discount. Both of these (and most of the applications mentioned above) have free trials.

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By Techwacky

Editor-in-Chef of TechWacky.com