McAfee Parental Controls review

McAfee works for multiple users.

When you first install Parental Controls, it detects the users who have Windows accounts on your PC, and allows you to choose the settings for each. This involves determining what kind of Web sites and content each user may view, and what kind of chat and instant message functions they are allowed to use.

You also decide what information they can transmit over the Internet. For instance, you can prevent them from telling others their real name, their location, your credit card number and so on. In each case, you can tell Parental Controls the information that should not be sent over the Internet. Only users who have administrator level authority can then send transmit this information via chat or e-mail, or submit it via forms on Web sites.

McAfee also filters online chat, whether by Instant Messenger or in chat rooms, and can block Web searches based on the appropriateness of the information that the users are searching for. If your child uses Google or Ask Jeeves! to scour the Internet for naughty words, all they will get back is rows and rows of asterisks. If a site is wrongly blocked, you can use the master password to unblock it - either for viewing on that occasion, or whenever it is requested. If you want to limit how long one of your family can spend online you can do this too, choosing specific blocks of time to lock them out of the PC each day. You can also choose to forbid users from opening particular programs at particular times - such as games on school nights.

McAfee has also taken the time to close some of the most common loopholes that parental software often leaves open. The software is multilingual, so smutty words in other languages won't get past either. You can also set up your own specific content filtering criteria, if you don't want to rely on the pre-installed ones.

Lastly, McAfee blocks proxy Web sites. These appear innocent enough, but their job is to provide access to other sites on the Web, including those with adult content. This is one of the easiest and most common methods teenagers use to get around Internet filtering software. Parental Controls includes a list of those proxy sites already known to McAfee, if your child gets a bit crafty and finds more, you can add those sites to the list as well.

If any of the settings are infringed, they are added to an activity log that tells you what has been happening, so you can see that there was an attempt to log on to a chat room, for example. This allows you to keep close track of what your child is up to.

McAfee is a good software suite at a very reasonable price. It's comprehensive, and closes all the loopholes most commonly found in this type of software. Only Net Nanny's greater flexibility prevents it from scooping an award this month.