Everyone uses the internet nowadays. Children, teenagers, adults, and even some of the elderly are active internet users.
Out of these groups, the people who are most at risk are children and teenagers. As a parent, it’s only natural that you’d want to take steps to ensure the safety of your children and keep them safe online.
For that reason, we’ve compiled a list detailing the best parental control software available.
Finding an ideal piece of software is a tedious chore, no matter how you think about it. It’s not just about getting the first solution you find – you have to explore the features and pricing and generally realize how comfortable you are using the chosen software.
As you might already realize, this makes it time-consuming to do so. Thus, with this in mind, let’s start looking at your options.
How Can Parental Control Software Help?
It’s not a secret that most kids have smartphones, tablets, laptops, and so on. With so much access to the internet, it’s important for parents to put measures in place.
Even more, some children and teenagers are said to have an internet addiction. So, how exactly can monitoring software help?
Let’s start with inappropriate websites. The internet is full of inappropriate content (not just pornography, explicit dating websites, and even gory videos).
When you use the best parental control software, you can block access to this type of content and protect your children. There’s no reason for anyone, let alone children, to view these things.
Another handy feature that many solutions have to offer is smartphone monitoring. View your children’s text messages, browsing activity, location, and so much more. To top it off, many programs allow you to add restrictions to your smartphone activity.
As you can see, there’s a lot that can be done by using parental control software, such as Sprint parental controls.
Top Best Parental Control Software
Now that you better understand how the best parental control software can benefit you, here are some of the top solutions we highly recommend.
#1 – KidsGuard Pro
As we all know, various Internet-related things are not suitable for our kids. So if you have kids at home, it should be brilliant to have a parental control tool to track your kids’ location, monitor their smartphone usage, block inappropriate content, get a detailed report on their phone usage, and more.
Then KidsGuard Pro will be your best choice. Any parent will find it useful and helpful as it’s one of the best parental controls for all Android smartphone users. It can also fix the issue of how to block porn sites for you.
Key features of KidsGuard Pro:
- This professional Instagram parental controls tool can monitor everything on your kids’ smartphone, including chats, conversations, files, texts, videos, photos, music, etc.
- Track your kids’ location anytime as it provides real-time location tracking via this professional best parental control.
- It also records keystrokes. Every time your kid searched for something online or sent a message, you would know it.
- You will have an activity log to figure out the overall usage of your kid’s smartphone.
Pros
- Easy to use for every parent
- A reliable way to keep your kids safe on the Internet
Cons
- Only for Android smartphones
#2 – Norton Online Family
Norton is known as one of the top anti-virus and computer security companies. It should be no surprise that they offer a parental control software solution.
You can expect a lot, from monitoring your kids’ browsing history to tracking their device usage in terms of features. We can even go a step further and track their live GPS location.
The cherry on top is that you can install this best parental control software on either iOS or Android devices without running into any problems.
Features
- Add a time restriction to limit when your child can use the device.
- View the GPS location of your kid with ease.
- Use this best parental control software to monitor various social media platforms.
Pros
- A free version is available so that parents can receive a hands-on experience
- Norton is a leading name in cybersecurity, and therefore this is a reliable app
Cons
- There is a limit in place when using the free version
#3 – Family Shield
Let’s take things back a step. Rather than focusing on fully-equipped monitoring tools, Family Shield blocks access to websites. As such, it will instantly block your children from accessing inappropriate material or if you want to put your foot down, you can block websites that distract them.
Disregarding how basic this program may seem, don’t let that take away from its effectiveness.
Features
- Limit access to certain websites.
- Monitor a few other types of data (e.g., text messages and phone calls) as well as limit browsing history.
Pros
- Very simple to use and is a reliable way to block website access
- Free to use – no hidden charges at all!
Cons
- Limited to just blocking websites
- Doesn’t include an app blocking feature which usually accompanies website blocking
#4 – K9 Web Protection
Back to one of the best parental control software solutions, K9 Web Protection offers a fantastic range of monitoring tools. It has a reputation for gathering essential data, which helps parents to assess their kid’s device activity.
With K9 Web Protection in place, parents have the capability of monitoring any iPhone, Android, or Windows device. Furthermore, it’s very simple to start tracking browsing history, GPS location, and time restrictions.
Check out the free version of K9 Web Protection to get a hands-on experience of this monitoring software.
Features
- See the live location of your kids via GPS tracking.
- Time restrictions can be used to prevent children from staying awake too late playing games.
- A free version is readily available.
Pros
- The free version is a huge bonus for first-time users
- Known for being a reliable monitoring tool
- Straightforward installation, nothing complex
Cons
- Users report that they can’t block some websites
- Blocking YouTube access is not possible
#5 – Windows Live Family Safety
Another well-known name in the tech world is Microsoft. Microsoft is known mostly for its operating system Windows, and a program they offer is Windows Live Family Safety. It is free to use, and if we consider how reputable Microsoft is, we can safely have high hopes!
With this tool, you can limit and monitor browser activity – two very essential features. Not only do you want to prevent access to inappropriate sites, but parents should be aware of what other sites their children may be accessing.
This has the added bonus of allowing parents to block more inappropriate sites which they may have forgotten about.
Features
- Free to use for all users.
- Include an easy-to-use web content filter.
- View the real-time location of the user.
Pros
- Free, thus no risk of wasting your money
- Includes the basic monitoring tools that all parents need
Cons
- Accessibility depends on the version of Windows
#6 – SocialShield
Last on our list is SocialShield – a tool many parents are starting to love. Sick and tired of your kids constantly playing on their smartphones and hiding behind their “black mirror”?
Most parents are and as such, monitoring their social media activity allows you to see what they get up to.
By using SocialShield, you can get direct access to view your kids’ social media activity. This includes what they post, their comments, which platforms they use, and a lot more activity.
With cyberbullying on social media becoming more common, you should definitely consider installing SocialShield.
Features
- View a wide range of social media activities.
- Monitor real-time activity updates wherever you are.
Pros
- Supports all versions of the Windows platform
- A popular tool that can prevent and stop cyberbullying
Cons
- Users are unable to control the target device’s activity remotely
Which is the Best Parental Control Software to Use?
We have done a lot of testing to discover which software is ideal. Of course, if KidsGuard weren’t the perfect solution, then it wouldn’t be at the top of our list.
For that reason, it’s definitely the best parental control software that we will always recommend.
Simply taking into account how easy KidsGuard is to use and how much data it is capable of monitoring, we can assure you that it’s the best option out there. But the others in this article are also great choices – we only recommend the best.
To Conclude
Internet monitoring has been a very controversial subject over the last few years. However, one thing that everyone can agree on is that children should be kept safe online.
If parents believe that they need the best parental control software to do this, then they should do it without a doubt.
Our suggestion, KidsGuard Pro, is effortless to prepare. The app can be found on both iPhone and Android app stores, and the monitoring can begin within minutes.