McAfee's new family shield
Updated June 5 at 3:48 p.m. Pacific Time: Users can now download the trial of McAfee Family Protection.
Correction: The 30-day trial for McAfee Family Protection is not yet available for users. I will update this post when it does become available.
On the heels of Symantec's OnlineFamily.Norton, released earlier this year, security stalwart McAfee is jumping into the family protection game with a new home-oriented protection program. Called McAfee Family Protection, the program will offer many familiar tools to parents in the hopes of fostering conversation while protecting children from harm.
McAfee Family Protection protects children based on multiple levels of technology.
(Credit: McAfee)McAfee Family Protection will offer blocking, monitoring, and parental notifications for most computer-based activities. The program will allow for up to 10 users on three different machines, utilizing several layers of algorithms to monitor behavior. Parents can outright block or merely monitor Web sites, social-networking behavior, and instant messaging including Facebook IM and multiprotocol chat clients, according to Javed Hasan, vice president of McAfee Product Management.
In addition to blanket blocks for subject matter and specific Web site blocks, parents can customize rules so that they can block all of YouTube, or just YouTube videos that have specific tags. Web sites protected by secure protocol, https, can also be blocked. They can also set up roadblocks that prevent specific applications from opening, such as peer-to-peer clients or media players, and parents can receive brief SMS notifications alongside more-detailed e-mail reports.
The program will also be able to restrict computer usage based on cumulative time used or by time of day. It uses a server-based clock, so tampering with the local system-based clock shouldn't affect this feature.
McAfee says that Family Protection uses about 20MB of RAM when idle and can run on systems with as little as 128MB of RAM. A three-computer license for up to 10 users is available for $39.99.
Seth peers into the deep, dark corners of software so that you don't have to. He has yet to suffer a single nightmare about OS/2. You can follow him on Twitter. 
Do you honestly think girls these days are less smart than boys? I have many girl friends who can use the PC better than most boys I know.
It's just time to realize that you cannot protect children from sex, violence, etc. and to not even try. Just tell them on NUMEROUS OCCASIONS that some of the things that they see only are okay in fantasy but not in reality.... though you shouldn't say that about 99% of the sexual things that they see online.
Just as an example, one friend of mine's daughter, who is two, has figured out how to order PPV shows on their cable box. Are you really arguing that children don't need supervision, or at least guidance, in how they deal with the flood of online information?
Sure they need guidance, but it needs to be openly communicated. Flat out blocking terms will make kids want to access them more than normal. They can go to friends' houses to watch porn and search for "anorexia" whilst watching unrestricted. Setting clear boundaries that are firm and negotiable is always preferable.
___________________________
The best thing that could be done is to realize that porn is not harmful to children and that children are sexual creatures who have the right to engage in sexual encounters with anyone they wish. If you want to protect them from pregnancy, STD's and other 'nasty' things related to sex..... birth control, proper sex education (and COMPREHENSIVE, LEAVING NOTHING OUT SEX EDUCATION AT THE AGE OF 2 is what I am talking about), and a few other things are the way to prevent those things.
It's time to realize that children are not as stupid as people would like to make them out to be, and stop trying to 'protect' them from things that you think are 'icky' or 'not for children', which is you putting your OWN judgments on things like you are always right.
Has McAfee taken over Safe Eyes or just using their technology.
Safe Eyes is available now.
My kids nag me mercilessly to turn off Safe Eyes if they can't access something they want to watch. It is hard to stop them nagging you into submission.
I'm really glad the year of service is almost up because I find this extremely annoying. I'm referring to Security Center, but still. If this is the way their products work then they're definitely not for me.
I don't want it disabled. I want it off. As in no longer running and using resources.
- by guvenlik-sistemleri July 15, 2009 10:27 AM PDT
- Thanks for putting up the information.
- Like this Reply to this comment
-
(31 Comments)<a href="http://www.guvenliksistemleri.info">güvenlik sistemleri</a>