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Make The Internet a Safer Place

The internet is a powerful tool that has completely changed the way we access information, communicate, and learn.

At the same time, it can also be a fairly dangerous place for children to explore too freely, especially as social media has exploded over the last few years and policing the global internet has become just about impossible.

Fortunately, there are plenty of tools available that you can implement to ensure that your children are as safe as possible while still making full use of the World Wide Web.

YouTube Kids

YouTube is a wonderful website for learning new skills, but because there are so many thousands of hours of video uploaded to the site every day, it’s essentially impossible for the YouTube moderators to block any adult-related content, including stuff kids should never see.

One way around this problem is to use YouTube Kids, which is YouTube that is much more heavily moderated, and means that there’s a very little chance that your children will come across something unsavoury while watching videos.

Swisscows

Google is the search engine of choice for many, but it grants access to the entirety of the internet, which is definitely not always a good thing. Instead, opt for Swisscows, a search engine that’s based in Switzerland.

It offers a lot of extremely useful functions, but perhaps the most appealing is its focus on family-friendly results, meaning that they automatically block out any content that isn’t friendly for children to see. Swisscows is free to use, but they do offer a membership plan that removes all ads.

Turn Off Location

Most smartphones these days have GPS built right into them, and it means that a child that has a smartphone can potentially be tracked wherever they go.

It’s a good idea to get a hold of the phone and make sure that the location is turned off at all times to keep them safe from anyone that might be able to get a hold of their coordinates.

Web Filtering

If your kid manages to get a hold of a specific URL address for a child-unfriendly website, there’s little that can stop them from checking the site out short of web filtering. What this entails is setting up a web filter that will automatically block specific websites from being loaded, just make sure it doesn’t also block your favourite sites or Aussie casino games.

One such service is known as OpenDNS, and there’s plenty of documentation available online to help those parents set it up, even if they are not that particularly tech savvy.

Windows Family Safety

Windows is the most commonly used operating system in the world, and it comes with an excellent Family Safety feature that can help protect your young ones by allowing you to monitor what activity is going on while they’re using the PC.

It also offers a wide variety of various tools that you can use to limit how long they can use the computer, as well as limiting the kinds of programs and video games that they’re able to play.