Pros & Cons
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- Blocks inappropriate Web sites.
- Controls Internet usage time, can control which programs access the Internet.
- Logs online activity.
- Remote management capability.
- Can alert via e-mail, text message, or phone.
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- Optional keyword-based URL blocking can block valid sites.
- Web-based admin interface can sometimes go blank waiting for server response
Safe Eyes 5.0 Specs
| OS Compatibility: | Mac OS |
| OS Compatibility: | Windows Vista |
| OS Compatibility: | Windows XP |
| Type: | Personal |
Last year, our Editors' Choice for parental-control products went to Safe Eyes 2006. This year, though, we found a product that has all its power, adds a number of features, and comes with a better interface: Safe Eyes 5.0. As with its predecessor, you can install it on three computers—Mac or PC—but now it supports ten user profiles, up from four. Another improvement: The new Account Summary page gives a useful overview of current settings for all users and lets you easily make configuration changes.
If you want, though, you can easily link a Safe Eyes username to the Windows account currently in use on a computer: Simply log into the utility and check the box that tells the software to save the username and password information. Now each time that account signs in to Windows, Safe Eyes will perform its login automatically.
On activating the administrator console, you get a handy tabular account summary with a row for each user and a column for each major feature area. A checkmark indicates that the feature in that column is enabled for the user in that row, and clicking a row/column intersection opens detailed configuration settings. This is a real improvement; the earlier version didn't have anything so handy.—
Building Blocks
To help avert that possibility, you can turn on an option to block searches and URLs that contain profanity or specific keywords you've chosen. Like the previous version, though, the feature is guaranteed to block some perfectly innocent sites, because it finds keywords embedded in other words. The site for the small-town newspaper the Winters Express provides my favorite example: Safe Eyes spies sex in the URL, www.WintersExpress.com, and blocks the site.
You can define a list of sites that the program should always allow, even if the category or keyword filter would block them, which solves the problem caused by URLs that appear to have embedded keywords—but only for the sites you list. Conversely, you can blacklist a site so it will be blocked no matter what.
You have to configure the category and keyword options separately for each user, but you can set the allowed and blocked lists for all users at once. Limitations you apply won't be affected by your kids' choice of browser, either. The product even blocked a mini-browser program I wrote specifically for testing.
Like its predecessor, this version of Safe Eyes gives you two ways to limit the time each user spends on the Internet. You can set a weekly schedule, in half-hour increments, of times when you'll allow and forbid Internet availability. You might, for example, lock it down between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m. every day, so the tykes can't get up in the middle of the night to play their favorite online games.
You can also define a daily maximum, in quarter-hour increments, for Internet use. Should anyone need a one-time extension, the Safe Eyes administrator can grant from 5 minutes to a full hour more. The time limits apply to Internet access only. Unlike
Program Interruptions
You can either prohibit Internet access by all programs in certain categories, such as instant-messaging, peer-to-peer file-sharing, and media players, or you can pick and choose specific programs within each category. Safe Eyes can also block all FTP file-transferring, POP3 e-mail, and access to newsgroups.
To prevent a program not on the list from accessing the Internet, you can choose Program Blocking from the tray menu, and in the window that appears, select from a list of applications Safe Eyes has observed using the Internet. For a preemptive ban, you can click on the window's Browse button to select any application on local or networked drives.
This release of the utility vastly improves usage reporting. For each user you can log all sites visited (you'll see banned sites listed separately), record all instant-message conversations, and note all programs that access the Internet. The nicely formatted report has an option to hide or show details and lets you save or print the info (I griped about the lack of a save feature in the last version). You don't get an interactive Flash presentation, as you do with ContentProtect, but the report is very accessible.
You can store the logs on your local computers or on the Safe Eyes servers; each choice has its virtues. You can access server-side info from any Internet-connected system with a browser, and you'll see a single log for each user even if you have Safe Eyes installed on multiple machines (it works on Macs and PCs). But you see details for only one day's activity at a time. The local log offers you the option of viewing activity over any period. To save or print the information in the local version, you click on buttons. In the online version, you save or print as you would with any other Web page.
Though logs provide useful intelligence, it's old news. If you want up-to-date information, Safe Eyes can alert you in real time should your kids overreach. You can choose three levels of sensitivity and set the software to notify you via e-mail, text message, or phone call. You associate a specific time period with each alert—you don't want Safe Eyes e-mailing your work account when you're at home or phoning your cell when you're in bed. Phone alerts carry a small charge, but your initial subscription includes 30 of them. You can add more at the rate of $6 for 100. The company used to charge for text-message alerts as well but has dropped that fee. —
New Features
This release also adds e-mail control above and beyond Program Control's all-or-nothing blocking of POP3 e-mail. The feature, intended mostly for the youngest users, lets you define a single approved e-mail account for each user and create a list of permitted correspondents. The account won't send to anyone not on the list, and mail coming from non-approved correspondents gets deleted without an option to recover it. You won't want to enable this feature for older kids, but it does mean you don't have to worry about little Mimi getting solicitations to buy prescription drugs online, or worse, when she sends mail to Grandma.
The new social-networking feature, which acts a lot like the private-information protection many security suites now offer, specifically refers to Facebook, MySpace, and Xanga, but it functions on any site where visitors can enter data in Web-based forms. After you record your children's address, home phone, cell-phone numbers, school names, and any custom data with Safe Eyes, anytime they transmit that information online, the program logs the event. You can also have get logs of any posts containing profanity or sexual themes. Safe Eyes doesn't block transmission of private information; the feature just lets you know that it's time to have a talk with your child about Internet safety.
The product remains a tough nut to crack—even tech-savvy teens won't be able to break it. I couldn't terminate its protection no matter what I tried. The most I could do was disable the program, which also killed all Internet access. I couldn't get around the time limitations by changing the system clock, either, because the product gets the time from the server. Even using an off-brand browser won't work, since the utility controls the Internet connection. Combine the indestructibility of Safe Eyes 5.0 with its strong features, the three-computer license, and the new Account Summary—which makes configuration even easier—and you get a useful tool that remains our Editors' Choice for parental control.
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Final Thoughts
Safe Eyes 5.0
Safe Eyes 5 does everything you'd expect a parental control utility to do and more. Its Web-based protection covers up to three computers (PC or Mac) and allows remote management from a browser. And this is one tough cookie?the kids won't break its protection.