Naomi

This parental filtering application blocks perilous material from being accessed on your computer. Though it snubs some useful features, it includes one useful feature that we really liked.

When trying to access forbidden territory, Naomi's visceral user notification is great: it kills the Web browser. No warning, no explanation, just boom: program closed. Naomi's engine uses heuristic and semantic data filtering and can hide its system tray icon for covert functioning. The program's plain interface is password-protected and has no filter-related configuring options; you just click to start and that's it. As a result, some search results aren't even revealed because the program immediately detects the explicit words and shuts down the browser.

The app also blocks P2P file sharing and chat sessions. During testing, however, the program didn't block instant messengers when inappropriate words were used, and user-defined options comparable to those in other parental-control filters are greatly missed. Naomi provides a moderate level of protection for free, but locating more powerful parental-control programs isn't hard.