Here's my Frugal Friday Tip -
We recently joined the high speed internet revolution... yeah, I know. It's 2007.
Unfortunately, it didn't take long for my dear ones to stumble upon inappropriate content. :-(
In my search for filters to keep the kiddos safe, I found this EXCELLENT free download called K-9 Web Protection. What it does is filter at the server level, and you can set the filter to block certain web pages, certain types of web pages, key words, etc. It also logs every visit to every website. I have found it to be really handy.
Another aspect I love about K9 is that I can set hours when the internet may be accessed. The rest of the time it is blocked, and only accessible with an administrator password. My computers are locked down from 10:30PM until 9AM daily. If I get "lip" from my kids, I shut down the net until their attitudes change. Maybe you don't have this with your kids, so just disregard if that's the case. I find this really handy if I can't be around to monitor usage. I can see where this would also be great if parents need to be away from home, and aren't sure if their sitters or kids' friends have the same surfing values as they do.
You can set parameters so that if someone is trying to access blocked sites repeatedly, the internet access is shut down for a set amount of time.
Personally speaking, I have blocked all of youtube, myspace, google video and facebook. I figure if the kids really want to see something they can flag me down and I'll allow the site while I watch it with 'em. I know many are fans of youtube, but I got an eyeful of really inappropriate images just by looking at the youtube main page... the previews can be very racy, to say the least. Not great for our young guys who are trying to honor God in their thought lives.
K9 has really helped keep the kids on the right track in terms of careful surfing. Nothing's perfect, but it does help a lot, and it's free and very user-friendly.
Here's the link for more information:
K 9 Free Web Protection
That's my Frugal Friday tip... can't get more frugal than free, can ya? *smile*
LOL....I just came on here to promote K9 and I found your entry. I wholeheartedly second using it. I've tried other and they were either so complicated I couldn't be bothered, or they weren't user friendly. I love that you can manually allow or disallow certain pages, and that it's all controlled by a password so I can still access pages that I want to see. Wonderful tip!:o)
ReplyDeleteWhat a great blog and thanks for the link. I really enjoyed reading some of your other stories.
ReplyDeleteThis sounds great. Thanks for the link.
ReplyDeleteWow! thanks I needed something like this!
ReplyDeleteLizzie