Parental Control Options in Outpost Firewall Pro

Preface

Children are inquisitive by nature. They tend to investigate a lot, are inclined to trust things they shouldn't, and can easily be distracted down inappropriate paths.

The Internet today, like the physical world, is full of places kids shouldn’t go, or should only visit under strict parental supervision. Unfortunately, it's generally easier to keep kids out of unsuitable places in the physical world than in the virtual world. There are many websites and online games designed to tempt children away from healthier and more productive online activities, so it's important for parents to understand that there are powerful yet unobtrusive tools available to help protect children while they're online.

This document reviews how Outpost Firewall Pro can be tailored to prevent children gaining access to adult sites and other inappropriate content.

Step one – creating viewable content and address restrictions for Web sites

Parents can create a number of restrictions to control their children’s Internet access. Using Outpost’s Content plug-in, sites can be blocked based on content that contains specific keywords, and individual web pages can be blocked based on urls that include specific keywords.

Multiple options to control accessible content:

In the screenshots above, you can see an example list of words and phrases which, when activated, will prevent children from viewing sites exhibiting these characteristics. Outpost calls this content blocking (for sites) and address blocking (for urls). If a child visits a site that violates these settings, a message appears, which you can customize to meet your particular requirements:

Explicit contents and access to game sites being blocked:

Before:

After:

This handy and intuitive tool lets parents easily safeguard their children from inappropriate web content.

Step two – limiting children’s access to inappropriate activities

Outpost can also easily be configured to keep children’s attention focused on their studies, not on unapproved activities, such as online games, while you’re out or otherwise unable to supervise their online activities. This is accomplished by creating special access rules for the particular application (web browser or game that requires Internet access to connect players, for example) to cover the time periods when you can’t directly supervise your children’s online activities (and you don’t trust the teenaged babysitter to be the online guardian).

From a technical perspective, this is accomplished by blocking all Internet connections relating to the games your children play; you can find the names of the program files by reviewing past connection statistics with Outpost’s Log Viewer. The example below shows how to create a rule in Outpost that prevents Counter Strike Source (part of the Half Life 2 game) from connecting to the Internet between 9am and 7pm.

1. Open the main Outpost screen and press the F2 key to open Options dialog box.
2. Select the Applications tab. If the game (program name hl2.exe) has been accessed before, you should be able to find it on the program list in the Application window. If it has not been accessed before, you can manually add the application and apply the appropriate settings.
3. Modify the existing or the newly created rule for hl2.exe to include a setting which would block access for the program during business days from 9am till 7 pm. Place this rule above all other rules for this program and click OK on all the subsequent dialog windows. The screenshot below illustrates the process:

Creating time-based access restrictions for Half Life 2:

After this corresponding rule has been created and applied, the game cannot be accessed during the time specified; however, it becomes available after 7pm with no restrictions. You can create any number of custom rules to apply to any program on your computer, based on more than a dozen different variables.

Below, you can see a 'before and after' view of what happens if a user tries to access the Disney site using the Firefox web browser after a rule similar to that described above has been activated.

Before rule application

After rule application

Time–based access restrictions are a powerful way to control how children access Internet-based resources at any time of day.

Summary

Because kids will be kids, parents need a helping hand to manage their online activities. With Outpost Firewall Pro, parents can be assured that their children will maintain the appropriate focus when they’re online, as well as be shielded from exposure to adult and other age-inappropriate content.