Pastoral Care
Pastoral Care
As a Pastoral Care Team, we continue to support parents and families who find it difficult to keep control of their children’s mobile phone and computer usage. While your kids are learning to be good online citizens and make friends online, you can do your part by keeping tabs on their iPads, iPhones and other devices. Parental control Apps can help you monitor emails, social media profiles, texts, and other mobile functions. Below is an article explaining some options which may be useful especially leading onto the Christmas holidays.
Best Parental Control Apps 2019
By Paul Wagenseil, Brian S. Hall & Sean Riley
The digital age can be particularly challenging for parents whose kids have smartphones loaded with messaging apps such as Snapchat, TikTok or Kik. Those kids may really believe that their texts, tweets or viral videos can't wait until the following morning.
The best parental-control apps for smartphones can help you track your kids, see with whom the kids are communicating, block kids from viewing objectionable or dangerous websites, and even help kids understand the value of limits while preventing them from accessing adult content or communicating with strangers.
No single parental-control service we tested is perfect, but Net Nanny (formerly Zift) delivered the best mix of web filtering, location tracking and app management on both Android and iOS devices. (All of these apps can do more on Android than on iOS, due to Apple's tight restrictions.)
Norton Family Premier was a close runner-up for best parental-control app. Unlike Net Nanny, Norton's service offers text-message logging and monitoring, but only on Android devices. Norton Family Premier also lets you monitor Windows PCs.
Parents on tight budgets should consider Kaspersky Safe Kids. Its free tier includes web monitoring, time limits and app management, and its full-featured, paid plan is just $15 per year for an unlimited number of devices, including PCs and Macs.
Net Nanny Family Protection Pass
Zift/Net Nanny has excellent web-filtering technology and a modern, intuitive design. Among all the parental-control apps we tried, it comes closest to having feature parity between its iOS and Android versions. Its iOS abilities don't seem to have been affected by recent Apple policy changes.
Net Nanny can track your child's location, display their location history, and set time allowances and schedules equally well on both platforms. The iOS version lets you block several dozen apps on your kid's phone; the Android one lets you block them all. (Tom's Guide readers save $10 off each of Net Nanny's plans.)
The only thing Net Nanny can't do on a smartphone is monitor calls or texts. No apps we tested can do that on iOS, but several do on Android.
Read our full Net Nanny Parental Control review.
OurPact
Excellent design, navigation. Gets kids actively involved. Now back in iOS App Store. Limited web filters. No call or text monitoring. Can get expensive.
Once the most powerful parental-control app for iPhones, OurPact was hobbled by an Apple rule change in late 2018 that nixed the service's geofencing, location tracking and time allowances on iOS. In early 2019, Apple quietly expelled OurPact from the App Store, but in July, after Apple eased up on its restrictions, OurPact was reinstated.
At its peak, OurPact was the only parental-control app we tested that could manage or block any iOS app. It can still do so for Android devices. OurPact also gets kids involved in managing the daily allowance of screen time that you give them, and it does a good job of scheduling.
Yet, its website filtering simply blocks porn, and it can't monitor calls or texts at all, even on Android. However, you can block messaging apps, and OurPact remains a joy to use.
Read our full OurPact review.
Norton Family Premier - Top pick for Android
Norton Family Premier's power and features are ideal for Android (and Windows) households with many children, offering nearly every feature a parent could want.
This service's location-tracking, time-scheduling, and web-filtering and -monitoring capabilities work on both iOS and Android, but time allowances are for only Windows and Android. App management and text-message monitoring don't work on iOS at all. There's no geofencing on either platform.
Norton Family Premier comes free if you spring for one of Norton's more expensive antivirus suites, such as Norton 360 Deluxe, which is often discounted to as little as $50 per year. At that price, getting Norton Family Premier along with Norton's excellent antivirus protection is a no-brainer.
Read our full Norton Family Premier review.
Kaspersky Safe Kids
Like Qustodio, Kaspersky Safe Kids lets you monitor your kids' activities on PCs and Macs, as well as on smartphones. Even better, Kaspersky's paid tier is only $15 per year, and even its free plan lets you set time limits, filter websites and manage other apps.
Kaspersky's location tracking and geofencing work in both iOS and Android, as do its web monitoring and device scheduling. But app management is limited on iOS, and the iOS app can't monitor calls or texts at all. Still, if you don't feel a need to read your kids' text messages, then Kaspersky Safe Kids is well worth considering.
In March 2019, Kaspersky Lab filed an antitrust complaint against Apple for allegedly forcing the removal of some features from Kaspersky Safe Kids. Apple hinted in June 2019 that it might relax some of its tighter restrictions on iOS parental-control apps with iOS 13, but we haven't yet seen anything different and Kaspersky's complaint is ongoing.
Read our full Kaspersky Safe Kids review.
Qustodio
Qustodio has software for Macs, PCs. iOS and Android devices and Amazon Fire tablets, and it lets you set time limits for individual apps and individual devices.
This service's limited location tracking works on both iOS and Android, although there's no geofencing option. However, a Family Locator feature that shows you where all your kids are at once was added in September 2019.
You can manage only a few dozen apps on iOS, as opposed to all Android apps. Web filtering is more powerful on iOS, while monitoring texts and calls works on only Android.
The one big drawback is that Qustodio can get expensive, costing up to $138 per year for 15 devices. In early 2019, Qustodio experimented with offering a much cheaper three-device plan for $40 per year, but that did not last. (Note: For the time being, Qustodio is offering 10% off each of its plans.)
Read our full Qustodio review.
For more information on this article go to: https://www.tomsguide.com/us/best-parental-control-apps,review-2258.html
The Pastoral Care Team