Internet security and limiting online/program time for kids: Parental Control 1.1.0.226

Crawler Parental Control 1.1.0.226
http://www.crawlerparental.com/


If you have kids that are on the computer and/or Internet for any length of time, you know that getting them to log off can be quite a chore. Also, knowing just what they are doing can be just as difficult, if not near impossible.

The makers of Spyware Terminator (which I LOVE) have come up with a pretty decent piece of software that can help you control just what your kids are doing on the computer. Not only does Crawler Parental Control help you keep them from getting into certain programs and folders, it can protect them as well by blocking nasty sites, and (my favorite feature) CPC can put time limits on Internet, computer, and even program usage...allowing you to shut down or log off the computer when the max time allotted is reached. The program is completely customizable in that you can add or remove sites, programs, and folders you deem inappropriate (or not).

Now, I will say that this program is not without its faults, but for free, it is pretty much the only game in town (from what I've found so far).

I can't possibly cover all the options that CPC contains under the hood, so I'll just highlight the biggies here. You can discover the rest if you decide to try it out. :)

The first time you install it, you will be prompted to create a master password to administer CPC. After the setup has completed, the CPC icon will sit in the System Tray (which you can disable for monitored users), allowing quick access to the program by double-clicking it.

Configuring the users

CPC picks up any configured local accounts and allows you to set up profile settings for those accounts. If you haven't done so yet, I would configure a separate account for your kids so you don't lock yourself out of something ;)

If you aren't familiar with creating users in Windows, CPC does allow you to create them through their interface.

Web filter

Web filtering is probably the number one reason why most people would use CPC - so, with that, I would say it works pretty well. CPC acts as a proxy server for all your Internet traffic, so it can analyze the web content as it is being downloaded to the system and act accordingly.

Like I said, this does work pretty well. If you open up Tools> Options> Connections in Internet Explorer once CPC has been configured, you'll see that the proxy setting has changed - pointing to 'localhost' as its proxy server. If you remove this setting while CPC is installed, you will not be able to surf at all.

Be aware that you will need to configure proxy settings for other programs that CPC does not detect automatically (Firefox, surprisingly) manually.

The program comes with a pretty hefty list of nasty sites configured in the 'block' filter, and you can at any time add sites of your own if you think your child should not be on them (like YouTube or MySpace, for example).

There are three sets of pre-defined filter options that you can choose from which doesn't necessarily apply to the web filter, but rather the overall CPC profile. These settings are: Child Only, Young Teen, Mature Teen, Spy Mode, and Master. You can easily tweak the canned settings even further, which is very nice. These settings have more to do with the rest of the configured options rather than just the web filter.

Within the profile configuration is a page where you can tweak the web content filtering. The settings are denoted High, Middle and Low; 'High' being the most restrictive. CPC has a filter algorithm that checks the page for bad words, etc. - I say 'etc.' because the way it checks the content is a bit vague here, but seems to work.

Time limits

By far my favorite feature of CPC is the time limit option. You can set up a limit for computer, Internet, and even program usage over a year, month, day or hour. Using a chart/table utility, you can enable/disable hours in which you want to allow the computer, Internet, or program to be available to the user in question. One problem I noticed here is that you are limited to blocking or enabling hours on the hour (no quarter or half hours).

One thing you'll notice right away is that when you set up a limit for computer time, it doesn't adjust the settings for Internet or program usage times on their respective pages... if you set up 6 hours a day for computer time, there's nothing that gets adjusted for the others that limits you to 6 hours for Internet or program usage. While this isn't really a big issue, it is a little confusing.

There is another option in CPC called 'Computer Limits' which I'm sure will be mistaken for 'Computer Time Limits' - - in any case, these are settings that allow the administrator to secure various Windows features, like hide disk drives, disable the 'run' line, disallow the command prompt from being run, etc. Basically, it is a way to control a small subset of Windows local policies.

But, back to the time limits...

Using the time limits is also a way that you can block a program from running. You simply locate the file on your computer, configure the time limit to 0 hours per year/month/day and that's it. While browsing for the file that is already on the computer is useful, I would like to see a way that you could add a file without having to browse for it.

I did notice that I had to log out of the limited user's account and log back in for this change to take affect.

When the user reaches their time limit with a monitored program, the user is prompted with an appropriate message telling them that the time is up. If they want to, they can have the administrator extend the time limit by entering a password.

When the computer usage time limit is almost up, the administrator has the option of entering their password and enabling a timeout countdown (up to 5 minutes) before the system will either (again, another configurable option) log off or shutdown when the counter reaches 0.




Reporting

Another nice feature of CPC is the reporting option, which allows you to have reports emailed to you that contain information about program usage trends, website history, computer usage and more.

I will say that some of these reports are hit or miss as far as usefulness is concerned. I liked the web history report, but some of the others show data without actually having any footers telling you exactly what you are looking at.

A really cool feature included in the reports mechanism is the screenshot history. You can configure CPC to take screenshots every minute up to an hour interval. Kind of nice if you just want a random sampling of what your kid is up to.

It would be nice if there were an IM plugin that would keep chat histories for the various programs out there, but that might be asking for too much...

You can set up CPC to automatically purge older reports in lieu of newer ones, so you don't fill up your hard drive with a ton of files you won't be using later on that much. However, you will need to purge screenshots...???

Other

A nice feature included is if the administrator forgets their password, they can have a temporary password emailed to them, and they can login and change the master password.

One major problem

I found that if you use fast user switching (switching to a different user within Windows without logging the current user off first), you will see a lot of weirdness with Internet access, even on accounts that have not been set up to be monitored by CPC.

So, If you use Fast User Switching, I would not use CPC unless you can make it a habit to log out completely before switching to another user.

Likes

• Time limits - even on individual programs - (major)
  
• Built-in filters for naughty websites and words - (major)
  
• Screen capture feature - (major)
  
• Auto email and purging of reports - (medium)
  
• Block folder access - (low)
  

Dislikes

• Noticed that sometimes I couldn't logoff or shutdown unless I closed CPC first - (major)
• CPC doesn't seem to like fast user switching. If you use this, then you will have some problems accessing the Internet via user accounts not limited by CPC's configuration - (major)
• Time windows can be confusing - if you have set computer time limits to 6 hours, then all other times for that time window should not let you set it for more than 6 hours. - (medium)
• Can't add a program file name to block which isn't already on the system - (medium)
• Must purge screenshots over time, this should be included in the auto purging of reports... - (low)

Like I said, there are some notable quirks with CPC, but I think that if you have a child that you wish to limit or monitor, CPC can give you some decent results. If you are aware of the limitations, you might be able to work around them.