Internet Filtering Options

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There are two main options with internet filtering: using a software program, or using a hardware solution. If you want to use a software program, Internet Explorer does actually have parental controls that you can use. It is somewhat cumbersome to use, but it does (for the most part) work. There really aren't any programs out there that do any better job, either, so it is not worth investing time and money into installing and configuring something that is likely to be more complicated and more expensive. The main reason for that is that it is simpler (and easier) to do at the router level, which also gives you more complete control. With a router, you can manage internet access by a variety of criteria - you can control which computers have access to the internet at what times (that way internet access to certain computers shuts off at a given time), what websites each computer can access, and many other things. If you do it at the router level, it also works even if the computer is using a different browser - most of the software programs only work with Internet Explorer and possibly Firefox. If the computer has a different browser (such as Safari, for example, which is now installed with Itunes), the filtering software won't work. With a router, you can also use a whitelist or a blacklist - you can either specifically allow or deny certain sites, making it where they either can only go to specific sites or they can go to all sites except ones matching criteria you select. Overall, if you want internet filtering, a hardware solution is definitely the way to go.