Editor's Note: Product not yet tested. The following description is from the manufacturer.

Blue Coat Systems offers web and network protection at all levels, from parental control for home computers to WAN optimization for Enterprises. The company has just released K9 Web Protection Browser for iOS, a free kid-friendly browser for iPhone, iPad, and web-enabled iPad Touch. This replacement for Safari "provides immediate and highly accurate protection from content that is not appropriate for young children, including pornography, hate/violence, illegal drugs and gambling." It also blocks access to phishing and malware-hosting web sites.

Like Blue Coat's free K9 Web Protection 4.0 for the PC, K9 for iOS relies on Blue Coat's WebPulse service, which "provides users with up-to-the-moment protection from objectionable content and threats, including phishing, malware and malicious content." WebPulse monitors real-time Web experience of over 70 million users which helps it quickly identify new sources of objectionable content. According to Blue Coat the service identifies over 110,000 new objectionable pages daily.

This product's parental control is only effective if parents prevent access to Safari and the App Store. The same is true of the free mobile browser associated with Bsecure Online v6.16. At first launch K9 for iOS offers a link to instructions for applying the necessary restrictions. The instruction page also advises parents to change a number of other settings for full protection.

Any attempt to visit a dangerous page is blocked with a simple warning that reports the page's category. A user who thinks the page has been categorized incorrectly can click a link to submit the page for review. The browser also forces safe search.

K9 Web Protection Browser for iOS is available now as a free download from Apple's App Store. For $2.99 users can upgrade to a version that does not include a banner ad bar at the top.

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