Friday, April 1, 2011

Free Web Filtering & Parental Control Software

We often receive questions about software that will protect children from the dangers that are present whenever they get online.  The need is obvious, but the solutions have always involved drawbacks:  cost, the possibility of slowing down your system, mixed results--blocking to little or too much, or gaping holes that allow children to easily bypass the software. 

So, what do we recommend?  K9 Web Protection is a great product that offers a lot of features at no cost to home users.  K9 can be set to block numerous categories of web content like pornography, gambling, drugs, and web scams without slowing down your computer.  K9 can also block access to image searches on Google, Yahoo, and other search engines.  If desired, the block can be lifted for a particular site or for a defined period of time.  Web browsing can be limited to particular time windows and access can be shut down for a period of time if a child tries to access too many forbidden sites within a given period of time.   Summary reports for sites visited can also be generated.  If that isn't enough, K9 also provides an added layer of defense against viruses and malware.  All of this functionality at no cost, now that's hard to beat!

While there is no foolproof solution to the problem of unwanted Internet content, K9 is a great tool!

Learn More...

Listen to Your Music Anywhere with Amazon's Free Cloud Player

 
You knew it would come...after all, backing up and syncing digital media like MP3s, videos, and photos between multiple devices is a digital housekeeping task that nobody gets too enthused about.  Now you can scratch those tasks of your list forever with Amazon's new Cloud Drive and Cloud Player.  This service allows you to upload your digital media to Amazon's servers using your Amazon user ID and password.  The benefits are obvious:  Having your media on Amazon means that you now have an off-site backup that can be accessed from anywhere you have a connection to the Internet.  The media will play on any PC, Mac or Android device.  Amazon is even throwing in 5GB of storage for absolutely free.  When you purchase music through Amazon, that music is automatically added to the online library without counting against the free or paid storage quota on your account.  Of course, none of this means too much if you don't have an unlimited data plan!  Time to go Android, huh?