Windows Vista: Parental Controls
An overlooked feature of Vista
Friday, January 26, 2007 by Island Dog | Discussion: Windows Vista
Windows Vista is almost here, and there are some features that I am happy to see included. Along with all the cool stuff like Ultimate Extras, and Aero, is something that is a little more important to me. This is something included in Vista that I think isn't talked about enough, and that's the Parental Controls feature.
Anyone with children will tell you monitoring their child's internet activity is vital, and I can't agree enough. My kids are at the age where they need to access the internet to do research for homework, projects, etc., and I have tried many types of software to monitor or limit their activity. I haven't found one that I am extremely pleased with, so I welcomed an integrated parental control tool inside Vista.
With that being said, I wanted to take a small tour through the Parental Control tool, and give you my impressions as a parent. In my case I will assign a user account that the kids use, and my administrator account is protected by password.
Configuration
Configuring the parental controls is done through the Control Panel, under "User Accounts and Family Safety". From there you can select which user accounts to apply the parental control settings to.
I turned the parental controls on, and made sure activity reporting was turned on as well. I will go into the activity reporting a little later. From the User Control window I can also configure the web filter, time limits, games, and allow/block specific programs.
Starting with the web restrictions, I will set it to medium, and block file downloads. You are given the option to add custom restrictions based on the type of content you wish to block, but I want to see how effective the default settings are.
Another cool feature of the parental controls is the ability to allow or block the time kids are able to use the computer. I set the filter to only allow access from 9am to 8pm.
The next step is the Games section. Here you can choose to allow the selected account to play any games at all, or set allowed/blocked game ratings, or you can select or allow specific games installed on Windows Vista.
The final setting is Application Restrictions. From here you can allow the account to use all programs, or just the programs you allow. I enabled this and only allowed a few programs the kids can run. These few are Firefox, Windows Photo Gallery, and Webshots. You cannot block a program like Internet Explorer from running.
Testing
Now comes the "fun" part, putting the controls to the test. Rebooting to Vista brings me to the welcome screen where I can choose between my account and the kids. Move the mouse over the "Kids" account, click, and nothing. It gives me a nice message telling me the parent controls have blocked access to the PC. Remember I set the controls to block access after 9pm. After removing the time blocks it's time to test the games and program access controls.
I set the controls to only allow the users to play only certain games which I selected. Trying to startup the game gives a small popup informing the user that parental controls have blocked the game from starting. The same goes for the programs access. I only allowed the kids to have access to a few programs, and any others that weren't "authorized" were also blocked. Very nice to prevent them from doing such things as chatting online, or using programs that aren't meant for them.
Web restrictions is the one I have been waiting for, and now it's time to see how effective it is. I fired up IE7 and went to Google, and typed in various search terms with a range from sexual in nature to violent, and it blocked just about every "creative" term I could think of. I had also compiled a list of........lets say "questionable" websites to test, and the parental controls blocked every one. I also wanted to make note these restrictions worked on both IE7 and Firefox.
My next task was to see if I could easily get around the controls. My first search was for "bikini" which was immediately blocked, but using the words "bikini islands" allowed the search. The sites which were about the Bikini Islands I was able to view with no problems, and sites which featured images of "bikinis" were blocked. It also blocked a few sites which used pictures of the islands, but did not interfere much with my research.
For the next hour or two, I proceeded to visit many sites of questionable content, various searches using a variety of terms, and just general web browsing to get a wide scope of how the parental controls in Vista would handle normal and not so normal use.
Summary
I have used many applications designed to block and control the content on a designated PC, both freeware and shareware, and I have to say the parental controls built into Windows Vista impressed me the most. They were very easy and straightforward to setup, and were very effective at blocking web content. The parental controls blocked most of the content that parents would find "questionable", and there were very few times where I could get around the filtering.
The ability to limit access to the PC was also welcomed, but I would like to see the same function used to restricted web usage only. Someone might need to stay up a little late to finish a homework assignment, and I would like them to have access to the PC, but just not to the internet. I also liked the ability to allow only assigned games and programs to be used. Chatting online is something I do not want my kids doing, and Vista makes it simple to prevent that from happening.
One of the best features is the ability to view an "activity report" of the account that is under parental control. This report gives a wide range of detailed information about what the users on the controlled account were doing. It will list the sites visited, the sites that were blocked, what applications were used, what files were downloaded, and much more.
Overall, I can give the parental controls in Vista a big thumbs up. Is it perfect....no, but it does offer good protection out of the box, and I think it will be a solution that will satisfy many parents. Take notice that the parental controls will not keep your child completely safe online, and nobody should rely on software alone for their child's online safety.
Reply #3 Friday, January 26, 2007 5:54 PM
Reply #4 Friday, January 26, 2007 6:16 PM
Reply #5 Saturday, January 27, 2007 1:45 AM
This article is very informative and well written. I, too, have tried many different programs aimed at keeping my kids safe online, agreeing, of course, that nothing beats keeping my wife and I actively involved in their activities. What I really liked was the activity report. It just makes me all the more interested in Vista than I was before.
Well done, Island Dog.
Reply #6 Saturday, January 27, 2007 3:20 AM
Reply #7 Saturday, January 27, 2007 8:06 AM
Unfortunately, kids of the age who want to go looking for "inappropriate" material, have the computer knowledge to go right past it. |
You are right, thats why the last line of my article was important.
Reply #9 Monday, January 29, 2007 12:47 PM
lol it reminds me of me when my brother put up zone alarm pro to block stuff for me, and trust me i was pissed off so i went deeply inside the root of the computer and deleted all the core files of zone alarm pro and it worked like a charm i was like 12 or so i think, When theirs a will theirs a way. lol watch u gonna be seeing hacking tips for going around the controls on nickelodeon forums and cartoon network i can see it already
Reply #11 Tuesday, April 1, 2008 5:13 PM
Reply #13 Tuesday, April 1, 2008 6:34 PM
It's not only that the parents don't want something bad happening to their children, it's their responsiblilty to make sure, as best they can, that it doesn't happen. In everyones else's eyes when something happens to a child the very first question is always, "where were their parents?".
There's a saying that sometimes covers this situation. Goes somthing like, "The older my parents get, the smarter they are."
Oh, and parental control was here long before computers.
Reply #14 Tuesday, April 1, 2008 9:33 PM
He entered it and hit ok. I changed myself to admin, disabled Parent Controls and delted his account. Just for being able to do that, he trusted me that I would be able to use the computer good enough, and he didnt put them back on (:
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Reply #1 Friday, January 26, 2007 4:47 PM