Just how effective are parental control products?

School children laptop

Parents are keen to ensure that their offspring don't access inappropriate material on the web and for that reason most security software providers now offer parental control products, whether as a standalone product or part of an internet security package.

In a study commissioned for a German magazine, AV-Comparatives has looked at the leading products for Windows and mobile platforms to assess which are the most effective.

There is of course no universal standard for what is acceptable content and as the report points out, "Parents need to talk to their children about the potentially dangerous and upsetting things in life, whether or not they use parental control software". It also stresses that the software is only effective if it’s properly configured.

The tests looked at 22 Windows products, five for Android and three for iOS. Using settings based on those suitable for a nine-year-old girl researchers tested them against almost 600 websites on subjects ranging from abortion to weaponry. They also checked whether it was possible to bypass blocks using Google’s cache or translate functions.

Of the Windows products only two, Microsoft Windows Live Family Safety and Telekom Kinderschutz, achieved a 100 percent block of restricted material but at the expense of a high level of false alerts. AVG Family Safety and Norton Family both achieved 99 percent block rates for porn with low levels of false alerts (zero for AVG) but did less well in blocking other material.

For iOS devices the best product was Deutsche Telekom Surfgarten with 100 percent success rates across the board but again a high level of false positives. The parental controls in iOS 7 managed 92 percent porn blocking but only 62 percent overall.

No Android product managed a 100 percent score, the best being BlueCoat K9 with 98 percent porn blocking and 72 percent overall, and Mobicip Safe Browser (97 and 77 percent) but both had low levels of false alerts.

It's clear from the results that no parental control solution is perfect and the report’s authors say, "We strongly advise parents using parental control software to test that it is working as they intend by performing a spot check of whether categories and individual sites are being appropriately blocked/allowed". They also recommend visiting the UK government backed Get Safe Online site which has lots of advice about online risks.

You can download the full report which offers much more detail on each of the products tested from the AV-Comparatives website.

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