K9 Web Protection Free

This post was written by admin on December 8, 2009
Posted Under: Child Safety, PC Security, Technology, Web Protection

K9 Web Protection is a free pc security application which can make surfing much safer for children and can also enhance all users protection by blocking various sites and for parents, it can give greater control over what their children view online and what they are exposed to as they surf.

For home users this is completely free and you can customize it through the control panel, which is password protected. Installation is simple requiring a few details to create an account. All you need is to enter your first and last names and a valid email.

You will receive a license and download link in your mailbox within a few minutes. The download is very small -- around 620Kb and installation requires only 25Mb of free space for the logs.

During the installation users are prompted to create an Administrator Password which will allow access to the K9 Admin Panel. A reboot is required to activate the program.

If you want to use it on more than one computer you must install it on each one.

Once activated simply double click the shortcut icon and the user administration panel will open in a browser window. Click on Setup and set the program defaults to what suit you and your child if applicable.

You may find the default settings block sites that you or your child, want access to, but by using the Custom settings you can create your own set of rules. and block or allow specific types of sites.

As far as child safety is concerned, discuss this with your child and come to an agreement, it’s much easier than facing tantrums and slamming doors! Create rules but also be flexible, don’t be too rigid or you will distance your child.

You can set times that the internet will or will not be available through the ‘Time Restrictions’ tab, users can limit the time that the internet will be available and can preset times.

Web Site Exceptions allow users to block specific websites by adding them to the ‘Always Block’ and allow specific sites by adding them to the ‘Always Allow’ and ensure that you click Save after each action.

The program can be set to play a bark sound when a web page is blocked, this is optional and also to ‘Show Admin Options’ which will allow the administrator to override the settings for either a fixed period of time or indefinitely. Users can also ‘Enable ‘Time Out’ if a preset number of pages are blocked within a preset period of time -- use this with caution and common sense.

Using ‘URL Keywords’ allows users to predefine specific keywords that will block sites that have these keywords in their url. With the amount of malicious sites that offer ‘free antivirus scans’ this can also be quite useful. Users may also want to block other specific keywords and simply have to enter them and add to the list.

In the ‘Advanced’ settings users can ‘Force Safe Search’ on the major engines, this is ticked by default so if you have customized Google’s safe search for example, this will override it and enforce Safe Search. Users can also ‘Block Unsafe Search’ which will block search engines that K9 does not currently support -- but be careful with this option as many web sites have their own search facility and this may block them too.

Parents can also view internet activity, this will show the ‘Categories’, ‘General Hit Summary’ and ‘Recent Admin Events’. By clicking on a category or request administrators can get a complete breakdown of sites visited, sites blocked, sites allowed and overrides.

Child safety online is very important, and by using a filtering program and also browser add-ons such as Web of Trust you can reduce the risks that children are exposed to as they surf the web and keep them safe.

Click here for K9 Web Protection Free

Click here for K9 Web Protection FAQ’s

Supports Windows 2000, XP and Vista 32bit versions

Mac OSX 10.4.7 and higher

Beta version available for Vista and Windows7 64bit versions