Welcome William, Can you tell us what you like about the product, such as key features and how they work for your family?

(A quick reminder, too, everyone: I really hope nobody's promoting the product(s) of the company they work for, since No Advertising is one of our community rules.)

Thanks much,
Maureen

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Maureen Kochan
ConnectSafely community manager

Thnaks for the helpful advice

Hi and thanks for the information. As for me I'm using Elite keylogger for monitoring my kids' activity. I know, this tool is one of those "bad" software types, it is a keylogger, but it works great for me. I can receive logs when I'm out of home and see what my kids are really doing. But I will try those you've listed here, thanks for the info!

Hello :

For what it is worth, I am employed at SpectorSoft and we are not considered malware, nor are we making our company name with this other company you mentioned. I am not sure where you drew that conclusion, but I wanted to make sure that I pointed that out.

I also wanted to mention that the original poster is an affiliate to these products and they are essentially trying to garner better web page rankings in order to increase their sales. My advice and suggestion to anyone that is looking for monitoring software to keep an eye on their kids would be to do your homework and read everything, not just what it will do. You may find more often than not with many of these companies that they do not update their software, or perhaps they have sub standard tech support.

With any of these companies I strongly suggest you read them carefully and also make sure what you are reading is completely accurate.

It has been quite a while since I have posted on this message board, but I do check to see if I could be of assistance and provided that Anne and Larry do not have any objections I would like to continue to do so.

Regards,

Michael Goldberg
SpectorSoft Corporation
1-888-598-2788
MikeG(at)SpectorSoft.com

Careful there.
Some of those parental control programs store data on THEIR servers and even sell your information which makes them MALWARE. Granted some programs will be picked up as malware/spyware by some of the major antivirus/trojan detectors, but if a programs storing data somewhere besides your PC its selling your data.

Of note in that list is Webwatcher which does store information on their servers (keylogs, snaps pictures every few minutes of your screen, and detects keywords in webpages and saves the pages/links) instead of sending the info to an email address of your choosing from your PC.
Read a little on that at

http://forum.sysinternals.com/forum_posts.asp?TID=12535&PN=2

As usual google for more (suggest typing in Webwatcher +spyware to read up on more specifics relating to its spyware activity rather than SETUP since its supposed to be setup LIKE spyware not BE spyware like other programs of this nature)


Then theres IamBigBrother:

http://www.symantec.com/security_response/writeup.jsp?docid=2004-070516-0957-99

Yeah of course Symantec is going to pick it up its a keylogger and/or root-kit (all monitoring software is)
But worth noting other legitimate parental control/monitoring programs aren't listed like they are, and it isn't just symantec listing them as a risk either. This one MAY depend on where you downloaded it from... User beware.


Spector Pro and Optenet PC:
Same company from the looks of it, same racket. Somehow Optenet PC got more mainstream reviews on it etc.. but they seem to be selling data. Big hint, any program marketed under different names should always be assumed to be malware PERIOD. I don't care what XYZ reviewer said about it.


Advanced Parental Control:
With such a generic name (ala XP antivirus, Sentry Antivirus, Windows Antivirus 2008/2009, etc..) , its HARD to look up...
Was made like that for a good reason, so you wouldn't get any hIts on that fact that its malware and selling your data.

Someone mentioned Sentry parental controls or something of that nature, thats definitely malware. Few searches turn up alot of results. I also posted about it earlier with a link to a review linking it with malware and them selling your data.

Safeeyes seems like the only legitimate program in that list. Found symante, mcafee, etc.. info on it but no dirt from anywhere really.

With security/monitoring software always
type out the name in your favorite browser directly followed by +spyware or +malware to see what comes up, it may just give you a hint on whether to avoid it, its risk rating (lows are good) or an outright warning from symantec or another big name like kaspersky labs or mcafee telling you to avoid it like the plague. And also, watch what links you follow to download this stuff,

http://www.parental-control-software-top5.com/

a rating site like that hardly seems like a legitimate place to download ANYTHING. Look for the real manufacturer webpage.

There are so many dangerous people on line, so parental control is necessary, you can find some parental control software from http://www.parental-controls-software.net

Hi Maureen,

Thank you for your response.

I use a simple Internet filter called EZ Internet Timer to control my children’s internet usage. I like this tool cause it very user friendly and does the trick perfectly under my Windows Vista 64-bit (not too many programs support it). It can stop all children’s on-line activity and block Internet browsers, e-mails, messengers according to my daily schedule. I set specific time periods for use by each of my child in the family. One of the most favorite features is the ability to set browsing and messaging timers separately from emails.

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Edited by KarenG. at 02/15/2009 7:22 AM