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EC Tests Show Windows Vista Is Above Average — At Blocking Content

Posted by timothy on from the bad-oysters-good-laxative dept.

littlekorea writes "Microsoft's much-maligned Vista operating system has been named in the top three of 26 tools tested by the European Commission to filter out web content deemed inappropriate for children. The EC tests found that none of the 26 products enjoyed a 100 percent success rate, failing to block over one in five adult sites. It also found that few tools could overcome the workarounds available through cache or translation sites."

9 of 101 comments (clear)

  1. Windows Phone 7 is great too by phonewebcam · · Score: 3, Funny

    Once its used up your allowance nothing gets past it at all.

    1. Re:Windows Phone 7 is great too by PmanAce · · Score: 3, Informative

      From your link:

      It seems to be related to the automatic "Feedback" in the settings menu being enabled by default. It seems to periodically send MS large packets of data. Turn off the automatic feedback to eliminate this.

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      Tired of my customary (Score:1)
  2. Whitelisting, not blacklisting damnit... by AlexiaDeath · · Score: 5, Insightful

    As long as you aren't ready to let your kid run free on the internet and see all there is to see, use white-lists. Anything else is doomed to fail.

    1. Re:Whitelisting, not blacklisting damnit... by xaxa · · Score: 4, Insightful

      If you read the report on this page "Risks and safety on the internet: The perspective of European children. Full Findings" you'll see that some children were negatively affected by what they saw on the internet -- mostly ones that saw violent pornography.

      I think there's little reason to block things if a teenager is actively searching for them, but there are good reasons to prevent a nine year old child seeing something unpleasant, for example children can have difficulty separating fantasy from reality. For the same reason, advertisers here aren't allowed to advertise a violent horror film during a programme children are likely to see.

      The blocking software/services are managed by parents, and I don't see any difference in principle between blocking web content and hiding your 18+ films in the back of a cupboard.

    2. Re:Whitelisting, not blacklisting damnit... by TaoPhoenix · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Let him. Just use a Whitelisted system. There are Kids Browsers out there. If he wants a site in his browser, "he has to ask IT". That's the mentality we should promote, not "the net is too big and scary".

      I'd rather a kid gets to do things without mommy and just know in the background that say when he turns 14 he can get "the adult internet".

      --
      My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
  3. openDNS content filtering by doperative · · Score: 4, Informative

    "OpenDNS gives you the option to block dozens of categories on your networks, for free. From social networking to job sites, from gambling to video sharing, from webmail to alcohol and more: with OpenDNS, you make the choice about what's available on your network" link

    1. Re:openDNS content filtering by Feinu · · Score: 4, Informative

      OpenDNS Basic is ranked at 22 of the 26 solutions that were tested, scoring below average on all four categories: Functionality, Effectiveness, Usability and Security. The list is available here.

      Interestingly, Mac OS X ranked as the best solution, scoring better than all the tested purpose-built options.

  4. Parental resposibility (and article correction) by tomknight · · Score: 4, Informative

    Very interesting area. Before people start saying that parents need to take control themselves (instead of letting software do their job for them), I as a parent of a seven year old believe I should do both. Be around to help, as well as give my daughter freedom and independence. She's not daft, but there is always the chance (especially on flash-games type sites) for interesting popups to... diversify her web and life experience. I use k9 filtering to help avoid this sort of thing. Wow, this almost sounds like a customer testimonial, sorry....

    Anway, the article sadly has a duff link in it. The report's *really* at:
    http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/activities/sip/projects/filter_label/sip_bench2/index_en.htm

    The full report PDF is:
    http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/activities/sip/docs/sip_bench2_results/report_jan11.pdf

    See also:
    http://www.yprt.eu/sip/

    --
    Oh arse
  5. OS for webfiltering? by EEDAm · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Hang on, so a superseded, widely meh-rated / derided OS, is the key to web-filtering? As the saying goes, might as well buy a jumbo jet for the peanuts...