Recently I did a post on Internet safety and how important it is to monitor what your children do on the computer. Even though it can seem safe when your children are home with you, the Internet can be an open window to the very things we as parents strive to protect our children from. The Internet can be a valuable resource to our children as long as we take measures to keep them safe while they are learning or playing games online.
As a member of the Crew at the Old Schoolhouse Magazine I was given the opportunity to try out a company that strives to provide parents with the tools to keep the Internet a safe place for your family. The company provides "8 Internet Safety Tools in one":
There are two versions of Action Alert.
The Free Version (easy download!)
•Offers everything you need to set up a kid safe computer in seconds.
The Maximum Protection Version ($29.99)
•fully customizable
•offers multiple user protection
•full social network monitoring.
Action Alert- has won several awards and also been shown on television. The Child Safety Network completely endorses this product.
Our children are the age where they are starting to use the computer and Internet on a regular basis. Action Alert has a search engine that is safe for children to use. I really liked this feature as they are beginning to be able to search out topics that interest them to learn more on their own. This helps my peace of mind as I do not have to hover over the children when they are browsing the Internet. I also like that you can set the time when your child can use the PC.
One of the other features such as screen capture were not as useful for me. It logs everything done on the computer and this really seemed to slow our computer down. Neither of our children chat or email yet so we are not needing to monitor that. I can see that being helpful perhaps for older teens. For me though, I would most likely tell the teen that chats/emails will be logged so that they may think twice about what they were doing. I would feel really sneaky doing that to an older teen unless I truly had a reason to believe they were doing something dangerous. But then again, I do not have teens yet! (my day is coming!!)
The biggest danger for our family is that our children will accidentally stumble on something they should not see and the search feature truly provides the safety for this concern.
Disclaimer: I received the full download version of Action Alert for the purpose of reviewing it in exchange for my personal opinion. No monetary compensation was received, and all opinions expressed are my own.
Please check out what the rest of the TOS Crew thought about Action Alert!!
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