Tools
to Find Family-Friendly Content
Copyright 2002 Andrew Malek - FindStuffOnTheNet.com
The Internet is magnificent in its resources for families.
Educational resources abound. Kids can easily find help for
their homework blues without venturing to the library. Kids
can chat with friends from far away for free; friends who,
probably just a few years ago, they would never hear from
again. And, of course, there’s plenty of entertainment
to satisfy the whole family once the chores and homework are
complete.
However, the Internet can often be an inappropriate place
for kids to surf unsupervised. Plenty of content is only appropriate
for mature audiences. And, sadly, there are ‘bad seeds’,
those who the children never should talk to.
Help keep your children away from these unsuitable materials.
Many search engines and directories have filters and options
that only return pages that have passed a particular profanity
or “kid-safe” filter. These types of filters vary
from web site to web site, but may do one of the following:
* Only allow you to search a selection of links picked by
the site’s editors to be “kid-safe” or free
of profanity.
* Not show links containing profane words, these being words
designated by a site to be profane. This list may not contain
all possible profane words or combinations.
* Show links containing profane words but block out the profane
words with asterisks, dollar signs, or other symbols. Again,
the blocked-out words are those the site deems profane and
might not include all such words.
Unfortunately, no filter can be 100% accurate.
Here are some search engines that have filters you can enable
to try to weed out inappropriate content.
Ask Jeeves For Kids
http://www.ajkids.com/
You can provide kids with their very own search butler. Ask
Jeeves for Kids is a special version of the popular Ask Jeeves
web site geared towards the younger set. It is used the same
way as the normal Ask Jeeves – just ask a question and
click the “Ask” button.
You will notice the site design is quite different from the
main Ask Jeeves. The page is colorful and includes fonts more
suited for kids. There are links to games, study tools, news
resources, and message boards. Be sure to check out Jeeves’
hat as you move your mouse over each resource :)
According to the “Parents” page, Ask Jeeves For
Kids only searches for “G-Rated” information.
However, they do warn that since web sites change, there is
no guarantee that adult content cannot slip through the cracks.
Still, they do a good job at trying to filter out information,
so if you have children surfing the net, you may want to point
them over to this popular resource.
Google
http://www.google.com/
Visit the “Advanced Search” link and take a look
at the “SafeSearch” section. Click the “Filter
using SafeSearch” radio button to cause Google to only
returns sites that match Google’s “SafeSearch”
filter. This filter attempts to remove material containing
pornography or sexual content, but it is not and cannot be
100% accurate. Click the link “SafeSearch” on
this page for more information about this filter.
You can also click the “Preferences” link from
the front page to set preferences on how you want Google to
search through documents. From here you can enable the “SafeSearch”
setting by default. These preferences are placed in the form
of a cookie stored on your browser, so if you disable cookies
your preference choices will not stick. Be sure to press the
“Save Preferences” button when you are done with
your choices or they will not stick.
Lycos
http://www.lycos.com/
Click on the “Parental Controls” link on the
front page (located under the search bar), or turn on the
“Adult Filter” from the advanced search page to
enable the “Lycos SearchGuard”. This feature attempts
to filter out sites containing inappropriate or offensive
material such as “adult, violent, hate and weapons-related
content”. Note that while no filter can be 100% effective
this is a good start.
You may also want to visit the following family and kid-friendly
Lycos sites:
Lycos Family Zone
http://familyzone.lycos.com/
Lycos Zone (For Kids)
http://lycoszone.lycos.com/
No matter which site you use, realize that no filter can
be 100% accurate. All it takes is a little web browser knowledge
to defeat cookie-based filters. Inappropriate sites can and
sometimes will “slip through the cracks”. Thus,
I recommend that you always supervise your kids’ Internet
usage whenever possible. These filters, however, may make
your supervision easier and your entire family’s Internet
experience more enjoyable without any surprises.
-=-=
This article was written by Andrew Malek, Internet Search
Guru and author of Find
Stuff On the Net
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