There are dozens of parental control apps that promise to keep your child safe and help control online use, but only a few apps really convince with their features. Many applications require far too much fine-tuning of settings to work – if they work properly even then.
I tested and rated the three most popular apps to find the best apps for parents to protect children’s online use. These apps have everything you need to protect your children’s devices, even outside the home.
Apps filter out harmful or inappropriate content from social media and a variety of websites. In addition, they have handy tools for monitoring your child’s Internet use, locating the location, and determining a healthy screen time. And best of all, the installation and use of the apps is made really easy.
Are you ready to protect your children’s internet use? Next, let’s look at the pros and cons of individual applications.
Top 3 Parental control Apps – Extensive Analysis
With a variety of content filters, location monitoring and other features, these digital parental apps keep your child 100% safe from online dangers.
- FamilyTime – a complete parental control app
Key Features
- Monitor Internet and phone app usage, including SMS, calls, physical location, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, WhatsApp, YouTube, and other social media
- Powerful content filtering
- Setting screen times
- SOS button (Android only)
- Location tracking
- Works on devices: Android, iOS, Kindle
I think this is the best digital parental app. I especially liked the opportunity to create healthy digital boundaries for a child flexibly and in a variety of ways.
FamilyTime’s content filtering is automatically applied, so your child is protected as soon as you install the app. You can also specify sites that are completely blocked, such as game pages or social media. Third, you can create a schedule for using the device or a maximum daily screen time.
Through the control panel found on the website, it is easy for parents to monitor what their children are doing with their devices. FamilyTime app can track a child’s activities on more social media and help parents monitor their communication too with features such as SMS monitoring.
If you wish, you can subscribe to extensive reports that FamilyTime sends to your email every week or month. The reports summarize the child’s activities over the past 30 days.
The SOS Panic Button (Android only) allows your child to send you a location alert at the touch of a button in an emergency. In addition, the app has location tracking (iOS and Android) that allows you to track your child’s real-time GPS location on a map.
FamilyTime covers five devices, and the price isn’t too big – perfect for large families. You can try all the features of FamilyTime for free for three days, so testing the app is entirely risk-free.
To download the app for free trial hit the buttons below:
- NetNanny – Custom alerts and convenient activity input
Key Features
- Strong internet filtering
- Screen time management
- Custom alerts and reports
- Easy-to-use action feed
- Location tracking
- Works on devices: Windows, macOS, Android, iOS, Kindle Fire
Net Nanny is another good digital parental app with a simple interface that hides a few really powerful security features.
One of the best features of Net Nanny is the activity feed, which conveniently shows your entire family’s activities online, all on one screen – perfect for a large family.
Of course, the activity feed shows all apps used by children and searches made online, but in addition, the app can immediately alert you if it detects and prevents your child from watching content related to pornography, drugs, guns, suicide, or other harmful topics.
You can also easily add new sites, apps, and content types to your app that you want to block from your child but aren’t already set up.
The app also includes schedules for online use for each child separately. This way, you can teach children healthy screen times.
If you want, you can also use GPS positioning, which shows the location of each of your children in real-time on the Family Overview map.
Net Nanny is definitely worth the price, and with one order you can protect up to 20 devices. If for any reason you are not satisfied with your purchase, you can request a refund within 14 days of ordering. So in two weeks, you can feel free to try out how this child lock fits your family.
- Kaspersky Safe Kids – The best free child lock
Key Features
- Block harmful content
- Manage screen time
- Check the location and battery charge level
- Follow the activities in Some
- Free and paid version, seven day trial period
- Works on devices: Windows, macOS, Android
Kaspersky Safe Kids offers parents a wide range of free childcare tools. Internet content filtering, application usage management, and screen time setting are completely free, where other applications charge for these.
The application can automatically block all harmful and inappropriate content, but if you also want to set schedules and daily screen time for online use, you have to subscribe to a paid version.
However, the paid version may be worth the price because you also get other advanced tools, such as real-time GPS positioning, a geofence, a battery charge alert, and a social media monitoring tool. You also get real-time alerts whenever your child tries to access malicious websites.
I especially liked the instant alerts about the use of malicious websites, and the geofence also proved to be really handy – it allows you to determine your child’s allowed whereabouts, and you get an alert if Kaspersky detects your child has left the area.
The paid Kaspersky Safe Kids Premium covers the protection of one device, but you can add devices to your order if you wish – this is a cost-effective solution for small families. You can try the paid version for seven days for free, and the order includes a 30-day satisfaction guarantee.
So now if you want to keep your kids safe in 2021, you can pick any of these three options and ensure your kids’ safety. Good luck and happy parenting!
