With as much time as we spend online these days, it pays to put a little effort into internet safety.  We use several different tools at our home.

We have K9 installed on the “kids” computer (http://www1.k9webprotection.com/). (It actually makes a barking noise if a site is accessed that is not allowed) It has worked pretty well and lets you type in a password to override the settings for any given web page.  We have customized it a little bit to allow some sites (like Facebook).  It locks out the internet after so many blocks in so much time.

Probably the simplest and most effective protection we have used is to put our computer out in the open and have a password to unlock it.  Sometimes it is a pain but if we have to log them in, then we know when they are on and can keep track of what they are doing (because we are around).  We have the computer set to lock when the screensaver kicks in.  Sometimes we turn this off when somebody has to do homework while we are gone or something.

On the “parents” computer I have Privoxy installed (http://www.privoxy.org/).  This is basically a proxy that the internet traffic goes through.  It blocks most of the ads and junk that I don’t want to see anyway.  It helps from accidently coming across something I didn’t want to see.

Another tool that we use on both computers is the Firefox browser with the add-ons of Adblock Plus (http://adblockplus.org/en/) and NoScript (http://noscript.net/).  Adblock Plus will block the ads and will also let me right-click on any image and block it so that I don’t have to see it.  This works good if there is a certain image that keeps showing up that I don’t like (e.g. somebody’s profile picture in a blog).  NoScript prevent scripts from running unless you allow them.  It can be a bit of a pain to “allow” all of the good sites but after awhile you’re pretty well set and are more protected visiting new sites.

The last thing we use on the “parents” computer is OpenDNS (http://www.opendns.com/).  We have the single computer set up to use OpenDNS but you can also set this up on the router so that all the computers will use it.  Signing in on their website (it’s free) allows you to set up filtering options to block the types of sites that you don’t want.  When any application requests a web page (like www.google.com) it goes to OpenDNS (instead of your internet providers DNS service) to convert it to the IP numbers (like 208.67.216.231).  If an application requests a page that falls into a blocked category, OpenDNS will just return their generic web page instead.  This has been helpful to block bad or unwanted pages that you didn’t mean to go to.

Probably your best option is to try out the different choices and keep and use what works for you.