Child Monitoring and Security Information Archive 2019 - 6.54.14
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Best Child Phone Monitoring App
Norton's parental-control app beat out PhoneSheriff ($89 a year), which had been a good alternative on Android, particularly for monitoring texting. Parents with many kids to manage might appreciate the simple setup of ESET Parental Control for Android ($30 a year), which lets you control an unlimited number of devices.
Child Tracking Device Jewelry
— NetNanny has been acquired by Zift, which has incorporated NetNanny's web-filtering technology into its mobile apps. The NetNanny mobile apps will continue to be supported for exising users, but new users are being asked to install the Zift apps instead. We'll have a review of Zift here soon.
No single parental-control service is perfect, but our testing found that Norton Family Premier delivered the best mix of web filtering, location tracking and app management, particularly when installed on Android devices. (The iPhone version of Norton Family Premier was limited by comparison, but still offered just enough web filtering to make it worthwhile.)
Child Monitoring Technology
FamiSafe also supports geo-fencing. This means you will get notified when your kids would enter or leave a designated location. For instance, you can get instant alerts whenever your kids would leave or enter the house.
App-management features in My Mobile Watchdog lag behind what you'll find elsewhere, but there are nice little touches, like the ability to temporarily block an approved app in case your child is spending too much time gaming when he or she should be concentrating on homework. You can also make sure that newly installed apps won't open until you've OK'd them.
11 Best Apps For Parents To Monitor Their Kids
As solid as Qustodio’s parental control offerings are on other platforms, this app for monitoring iOS devices is pretty lackluster. In part, that reflects the restrictions Apple puts on third-party monitoring apps, but that doesn't fully explain the flaws in Qustodio's iOS offering.
— Apple recently began more strictly enforcing its mobile-device-management policy, which has hampered the ability of some parental-control apps to provide location services on iOS. As far as we know, none of the products reviewed on this page are affected.
Parental-control apps for mobile devices work best when they're part of a comprehensive approach to teaching your kids about behaving responsibly online. That means talking to your kids about what they should and shouldn't do with their mobile devices, clearly communicating how you expect them to act and making clear that you will be monitoring what they do with their phones.
If you're primarily concerned about keeping your kids away from dubious content on the web, the iOS edition of Norton Family Premier ($50 a year) is an excellent choice. Norton's iOS offering provides robust filtering tools, whether you use the iPhone's built-in Safari browser or Norton's own browser. Age-based filters make it easy to get it up and running, and you can further customize filters or whitelist sites.
KuuKla is a parental control application for your child's protection while using internet on a tablet. It is very quick and extremely effective when it comes to installation and monitoring web activities. KuuKla is strictly for Android tablet users and makes you discreetly watch their usage on the device.