Protecting your family on internet

Although no technology can be a replacement for parental involvement, there are ways to use Microsoft software to help protect your children from inappropriate content.

Here are some tips for protecting your children’s privacy and safety when they’re using the computer.

Step 1: Decide where your child can and can’t go on the Internet

It’s a good idea to check out some sites for kids. Pay particular interest to sites that collect personal information.

If you don’t agree with the privacy statement of a particular site or if you don’t want to give away any of your child’s personal information, do a little searching and you may find a similar site that doesn’t request any information at all.

Block inappropriate content
One of the best defenses against inappropriate content is to block it before it gets to you. With Microsoft software there are a few different ways you can do this.

Windows Vista Parental Controls. As a parent you have a unique opinion on what kind of content is appropriate for your child depending on his age, maturity, and your personal beliefs. Windows Vista introduces a rich and powerful set of parental control features to help parents monitor, manage, and administer their children’s computer use—and help keep them safe. For more information, see Windows Vista Parental Controls.

Windows Live OneCare Family Safety . Software that helps you filter information based on each child’s age to help protect them from content you don’t want them to see. You can also limit searches, block or allow certain Web sites, and monitor what your kids are doing online. You’ll also have access to guidelines on how to help a child use online communications safely or how parents should talk to children about inappropriate Web browsing. For more information, see Windows Live OneCare Family Safety.

Xbox parental controls. Xbox includes similar parental controls that help you restrict your child’s ability to play inappropriate games and watch inappropriate DVD movies. For more on keeping your kids safe when they play games on the Internet, read Safety tips for kids and gaming.

Step 2: Increase your security and privacy

In addition to blocking inappropriate content, it’s a good idea to block sites and downloads that may be a risk to your security and privacy.

Create different user accounts. With Windows Vista and Windows XP, you can create multiple user accounts for your computer. Each user can log on separately and has a unique profile with his or her own Desktop and My Documents folder.

As a parent you can give yourself an Administrator account with full control over the computer, and give your children Limited User accounts, with restricted controls.

Limited Users cannot change system settings or install new hardware or software, including most games, media players, and chat programs. To learn more about how to set up different user accounts, read How the right user account can help your computer security.

Adjust Web browser security settings. You can also help protect your child through your Web browser. Internet Explorer helps you control your security and privacy preferences by allowing you to assign security levels to Web sites.

Internet Explorer 6 also helps protect your privacy while you’re on the Web by providing features that help control how Web sites track your activities.

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