Internet Filters
I am surprised that there isn't already a topic on this forum about this, but it my opinion there shouldnt be a home in this country Jewish or otherwise that should have unfiltered internet in their house. The accessibility of pornography and all other forms of trash that represent the lowest forms of human society is only a mouse click away and nobody should have to face such a test.
Below I will include list of the internet filters that I am familiar with: (if possible I can try to keep this list up-to-date if others add comments for ones that I missed)
1. K9WebProtection -
www.k9webprotection.com - Best FREE internet filter that I know of which is very customizable and easy to install, and pretty hard to bypass.
2. OpenDNS -
www.opendns.com - Another FREE filter that works based on DNS filtering, however this filter is extremely easy to bypass, it is basically just doing the reverse of the installation. In my opinion it is great as a second layer of protection but should not be relied upon as a first line of defense.
3. Covenant Eyes -
www.covenanteyes.com - A very popular internet monitoring tool which can either include just accountability reports which basically send a summary of all questionable websites visited to a third party but doesnt actually block anything, or also can provide actual website filtering as well. There is a charge for this service however it varies because many places have "group" discounts with Covenant Eyes and therefor you can get a better annual rate. (As a side note I had Covenant Eyes on my computer and it wreaked havoc, because it is often incompatible with many other programs. It is possible that they have gotten better since I last tried it, but the program is designed to act like any other form of malware which embeds itself in the system to make sure it is difficult to bypass, but that could cause other unwanted issues.)
4. Netnanny -
www.netnanny.com -My personal favorite internet filter which provides a ton of customizable features, my favorite of which being that you can have different account logins within the same computer so that each one can have its own customized internet filtering settings. Also Netnanny allows remote access so that if you install it on your computer and a friend has the password, and a site that is OK gets blocked for some reason, you can send a request to them to unblock it and they can do that remotely. Netnanny also gives the ability to send emails whenever an attempt to go to a blocked site is made, to prevent someone from constantly "trying to test the limits" to find something that is not blocked. Netnanny does charge a $39.99 per year for one computer license or $59.98 for 3 computers, which in my opinion is a VERY reasonable price to pay to protect yourself and your family from the dangers of the internet (This is the filter that I personally use on my computer)
I am sure that there are many other very good filters out there, but these are the ones that I have firsthand knowledge of, please feel free to post comments below and I can try to update this list.
Feel free to post your thoughts!