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What Filters Are Right For Kids?

Posted by timothy on from the cue-the-scorn-cannons dept.

WaywardGeek writes "My daughter is using phrases like 'hot guys,' and soon will have a chat about the birds and the bees. I believe in letting kids discover the world as it is, and have no Internet controls on any of our systems, which are mostly Linux based. However, it's not fair for aggressive porn advertisers to splash sex in her face without her permission. My question is: What Linux-based Internet filtering solution do Slashdot dads favor, and do they hinder a child's efforts to learn about the world?"

6 of 678 comments (clear)

  1. Adblock by antifoidulus · · Score: 5, Informative

    Seriously, if all you are worried about is her getting porn ads when she doesn't want them, just use adblock.

    --
    Monstar L
  2. Use openDNS by sammy_cda · · Score: 5, Informative

    Use openDNS and set up an account. Point your router's DNS settings to their servers. It allows a few different levels of filtering. You can change the levels of filtering as she grows older.

  3. OpenDNS by jkupko · · Score: 4, Informative

    Just change your DNS servers to OpenDNS (http://www.opendns.com/) and register your IP with them. You can use their category-based filtering to block the pr0n. Block adware, malware, and phishing while you're at it. Oh, and enjoy a faster DNS service and extensive stats pages. If you are worried about a dynamic IP from your ISP, don't be: most ISP's preferentially reassign IPs to customers instead of switching it up. Happy censoring!

  4. Use OpenDNS and a hosts file by NeverVotedBush · · Score: 5, Informative

    Actually, something like that exists for Linux and any OS that uses DNS - check out OpenDNS.

    http://www.opendns.com/

    You can configure what levels of filters to use and even customize the page that opendns supplies when a forbidden link is clicked.

    They are also working to block some of the botnet phone homes.

    All you need to do is use their name servers. You can set up an account and configure what gets blocked and what doesn't.

    Also check out an enhanced hosts file at http://www.mvps.org/winhelp2002/hosts.htm.

    That will block a lot of requests from ever leaving the computer. You can also add in whatever others you want as well.

    1. Re:Use OpenDNS and a hosts file by WaywardGeek · · Score: 5, Informative

      Dude, right on! I'm the original poster, and I have to tell you, this is exactly what I was looking for. I've set filter level to 'medium', for malware/phishing and porn. As the kids grow old enough to figure out how to get around it, they're probably old enough to handle unfiltered content.

      I hate to sound like an add for these guys, but hey, it's free, and in a few minutes of testing, it blocked 100% of the porn sites I tried to visit, but nothing from wikipedia.org. Search for 'sex' on wikipedia, and you still get a useful, informative site. Search for 'sex' on Google, and not one hard-core porn site is allowed, but metacafe.com gets through. The 'cached' links from Google show hard-core porn thumbnails, though. Not perfect, but way better than I was expecting! Thanks!

      --
      Celebrate failure, and then learn from it - Nolan Bushnell
  5. Re:The simple one. by geminidomino · · Score: 4, Informative

    Sure it does.

    1) /etc/hosts - Unwieldy, but effective.
    2) apt-get install bind - A little better, zone files are available
    3) OpenDNS and the like...
    4) Privoxy
    5) Squid+Junkbuster
    6) ...