Net Nanny parental control app review
Our Verdict
Net Nanny is our meridian choice amidst parental-command apps for its broad feature set up, wide platform back up and reasonable pricing.
For
- Intuitive and consistent design
- Unmatched spider web filtering
- Useful parental resources
- Solid location features
- Reliable time direction
Confronting
- Relatively expensive
- Lacks some features on iOS
Tom's Guide Verdict
Net Nanny is our tiptop choice among parental-control apps for its broad feature set, broad platform back up and reasonable pricing.
Pros
- +
Intuitive and consequent pattern
- +
Unmatched spider web filtering
- +
Useful parental resources
- +
Solid location features
- +
Reliable time management
Cons
- -
Relatively expensive
- -
Lacks some features on iOS
Net Nanny: Specs
Price: $55 to $90/twelvemonth
Number of devices: 5 to twenty
Platforms: Android, Chrome Os, iOS, Kindle Fire, Mac, Windows
Spider web portal for parents: Yes
Call logging: None
Text logging: None
Call blocking: None
Text blocking: None
Geofencing: Yes
Location tracking: Yes
Location history: Yes
Web monitoring: Yes
Spider web filter: Yes
Time limits: Yes
Scheduling: Yes
App management: Android, Kindle Fire merely
App blocker: Android, iOS (limited), Kindle Fire
Net Nanny is perhaps the oldest name in parental-command software, and yet it remains i of the about modern and comprehensive solutions. The company was bought out by Zift in 2016 and briefly changed names, merely in May 2019 reverted to the familiar Net Nanny name.
Zift'south influence as a digital-parenting company is yet very much present in Net Nanny, which has $.25 of advice from the Zift editorial team and prominent Zift influence in the App Advisor and Family Feed features.
Cyberspace Nanny offers a superior method of web filtering compared to most of its competitors. It analyzes the pages as they are pulled up on a child's device rather than just relying on block lists as many other parental-command services do. Internet Nanny uses a scalpel rather than a sledgehammer to remove unwanted content from your child's online experience.
The app has too addressed some of its other shortcomings since I last reviewed information technology, calculation a web portal and geofencing along with a host of other new features. Net Nanny remains one of the more expensive parental-control options, with a yearly subscription fee of $54.99 roofing up to 5 devices, but it remains the best parental-control app on the market.
Read on for the remainder of our Internet Nanny review.
Net Nanny is offer Tom'south Guide readers $10 off each of its plans .
Net Nanny: Costs and what'south covered
Technically you tin can install and use the Internet Nanny app for complimentary, merely it will operate purely as a parenting guide to apps and a source for relevant news regarding digital parenting, then I don't think that actually counts as a free tier for the actual service.
To use any of the parental controls on your kid(due south) device(due south) yous need to pay for a "Family Protection Pass" subscription. That costs either $54.99 per yr for upwardly to 5 devices or $89.99 per twelvemonth for up to 20 devices.
The one exception is if you are trying to monitor only a unmarried Windows or Mac desktop or laptop. If so, you tin pay $39.99 per year for Net Nanny for Windows or macOS, but this plan does not extend to mobile platforms or to multiple devices.
All these subscription fees are supposedly 30% off regular pricing, but this discount has remained static for years and co-ordinate to representatives from Net Nanny, there are no planned price increases on the manner.
That's skilful, as Net Nanny is hovering around the highest-priced parental-command options already. Only OurPact commands a higher starting price, but that is for unlimited devices, and so it'southward not an apples-to-apples comparison.
Given what yous go with Net Nanny'southward premium tier I think information technology is certainly worth the toll. Its mobile apps and web portal are amid the best designed in the manufacture, and the spider web filtering is second to none.
Net Nanny offers back up beyond every major platform and delivers equally well on Android and iOS. The service is also constantly improving in response to feedback from both users and reviews, a process that I've seen firsthand.
Net Nanny runs on Android, iOS, Windows, macOS, Chrome Bone and Kindle Burn down.
Net Nanny: Installation
Net Nanny's installation follows a similar design to most other parental-control apps. You can start the process either from the website or from the mobile app.
Like another parental-command providers, Net Nanny uses a two-app organisation to separate out the child app that typically gets downvoted by children in app stores. The first step is to create your business relationship, and then you lot will movement on to the child device(southward).
Net Nanny has an install folio on its website that will walk you through the entire procedure if you navigate to it from the child'due south device. This will involve downloading the relevant app from that device's app shop and then creating a profile for the kid. The profile just consists of the child'due south name, historic period and gender.
On iOS, you volition exist installing a Mobile Device Management profile on the child'south device to enable Net Nanny's full functionality as well as granting the app of permissions. The procedure on Android is quite similar with the app walking you lot through the process of granting the necessary permissions and approving device management.
Recent versions of both Android and iOS don't let you grant permanent location privileges to an app during installation. You lot'll need to be sure to go to the settings menu and toggle Internet Nanny'southward location privileges to "always" if you want its location tracking to work.
Net Nanny: App management
Cyberspace Nanny has inverse things with its app management, removing apps as a primary category on the parent app and web portal. At present you admission app management from the settings, which was a secondary access point previously. I prefer this every bit app blocking isn't something yous need to access regularly.
Net Nanny manages to block a few more apps on iOS than many of its competitors, with a niggling over 100 apps eligible to be blocked. Simply this is still just a drop in the saucepan, and no one manages to compare to OurPact in this regard.
So if you opt for Net Nanny and your child has an iOS device, the best solution will be to delete any apps on your child'southward device that you don't corroborate of and then set up upwardly Apple'due south own Ask to Purchase feature so that you can corroborate all app downloads in the future.
On Android, Net Nanny gives you complete command of your child'south apps and the ability to block or allow whatever app on their device. While you volition be notified if your child installs a new app, if you lot want control over what they install, then you need to use Android'southward built-in Play Store parental approving system.
Cyberspace Nanny'due south app management on Android covers the basics, but it lacks some extras like the power to set time restrictions or schedule specific apps.
Net Nanny breaks out social-media apps into their own settings folio, called Social Media Protection. 7 such apps (Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, TikTok, Tumblr, Twitter and YouTube) support a "Protect" option that applies your existing Net Nanny content filters. Net Nanny also lets you quickly block social-media apps that don't back up Protect, or simply cake all social-media apps.
Internet Nanny: Web filtering
Web filtering is absolutely the star of the show for Net Nanny. If anything, its advantage in this realm seems to be more pronounced than the last fourth dimension I reviewed it.
As I mentioned already, Net Nanny performs actual assay on the content of the web pages equally your child visits them rather than just using cake lists. This makes a world of difference for both preventing false positives and ensuring that a site can't change things upward suddenly and get around its filters.
Net Nanny has the basic category-based filtering that y'all'll also find with many competitors. In this example, at that place are 14 different categories built in. You tin can choose to let, cake or popular-up alert almost all sites that autumn into whatever of these categories.
The "alert" setting will allow your child to view the content but also brandish an alert for it in the Family unit Feed. This all works fantastically well; I was unable to get around any of the blocks on my exam devices on either Android or iOS.
Beyond these basic filter categories, Cyberspace Nanny allows y'all to build your ain filter with its Custom Content Filters. Y'all pick a name for your filter and then add together equally many words and/or phrases equally yous would like to build it out.
No other parental-command app that I tested offers anything shut to this functionality, which gives you the power to actually fine-tune filters for content that you find problematic.
Net Nanny as well offers the more common block or allow list, on which yous tin can designate specific sites that you would similar to make sure your child does or does not have access to.
When your child encounters a blocked site, they will see a Net Nanny screen explaining that the page is blocked. The child can and so tap a button to request access if they experience that information technology shouldn't be blocked.
One final filtering extra from Net Nanny is the ability to mask profanity on the web. This is really putting the strength of its live folio analysis on display, as information technology covers over profanity in text with the "#" symbol. The filter is imperfect in that unusual or compound profane terms can brand it through, but information technology does a solid job. Once again, no other service I tested offers annihilation like this.
Net Nanny: Fourth dimension management
Cyberspace Nanny covers a solid array of time-management features in line with almost of the other top options. You can choose to fix schedules, daily fourth dimension allotments, overall usage limits, daily schedules to pause the device or only suspension internet access. The setup is my 1 quibble equally it is more time-consuming than necessary.
The process to set usage limits is a minor example of this. Information technology is easy enough to option the limits for any day: Only tap on the day in the Screentime direction menu so select the amount of time y'all would like the child to have for that mean solar day.
This takes all of a infinitesimal to do, just it could hands be streamlined to apply the limit across multiple days. What I do actually like here is the option to give a temporary fourth dimension boost or retraction on the current day without tweaking the time resource allotment for that twenty-four hours in the futurity. I nonetheless adopt the actual task-based assart system seen in the rival Screen Time app, but Internet Nanny's is a close 2d.
The setup for scheduling was my larger complaint. This section does fortunately permit you to utilize the same schedule across multiple days, merely the actual time selection was frustrating at first.
You tap whether you want to create a new interval that will completely pause the device or simply cake the internet. Then information technology pops upwardly an interval and you fix its outset and end fourth dimension.
The trouble was that Internet Nanny tried to be intelligent most this and would foreclose me from setting the times as I wished. What I ultimately realized is that once an interval exists, you tin can move it wherever y'all similar past long-pressing and then dragging and dropping it or its start and end times every bit you lot wish. This is absolutely the all-time way to handle scheduling, and frankly I think Net Nanny would be wise to make this the chief command as it is faster and more intuitive.
In one case you accept the schedule set, it provides a view of the total week that I really like. Once more, once I'd learned the new method of dealing with the schedule, it was unproblematic to brand changes as needed.
Net Nanny: Texting management
Internet Nanny doesn't offer any call or texting management features, simply this absenteeism has become quite common in the parental-control industry.
If your kid has an Android device, yous could opt to block texting apps completely with Net Nanny.If you are looking to monitor or restrict your child's texts and/or calls, then Qustodio offers that functionality.
Internet Nanny: Location tracking
Cyberspace Nanny has built out this office considerably in the terminal couple of years, and information technology now offers a very comprehensive set of location-tracking features. It offers live tracking, location history and geolocation.
Live tracking is displayed at the top of the overview screen and is also available in the Location tab for each private kid. Information technology volition display a pin on a map for each child device with the device'southward last known location. Location history will show location updates for the last 30 days.
Geolocation was the nigh recent add-on, and it allows you to set up locations that your child has visited equally "Our Locations." Yous can opt to receive notifications whatsoever fourth dimension your kid arrives or leaves one of these locations — geofencing, in other words.
Even if you lot choose not to receive the notifications, Net Nanny will list these locations by your chosen name rather than simply an accost when you're viewing location history.
It would be nice to be able to set locations in advance rather than having to await for the child to visit one of them, but in general I remember Net Nanny's location features now cover the needs of well-nigh users.
Family unit Feed
Net Nanny's primary screen is the Family Feed, which gives you the electric current location of any child devices at the top of the screen with all the near recent activities listed below that.
Depending on how agile your children are online, this might not be the optimal way to view specific activities. But it is a handy choice for either scrolling through the twenty-four hours to encounter if anything warrants your attention or to just have a quick glance to see what'southward happening correct now.
App Advisor
This is another unique offering from Net Nanny. Information technology's produced by the Zift editorial team and tries to assist you determine if specific apps, games and services might be advisable for your child. Each app list has a header indicating whether the app is deemed safety for kids or not by Zift's team and information technology and so offers a complete breakup for y'all to make your own determination.
This includes a "Zift Advisory" that lists some of the potential concerns with the app, which can include chat, alive streaming, location tracking, photo sharing, stranger danger (allows for interactions with strangers) and finally mature content.
It gives a quick description of the app, followed past a much more thorough dive into what the app is and how information technology works forth with a section that breaks downwards how the Zift team concluded that it either is or isn't safe for kids. Finally, it includes the app-store screenshots of the app.
While this characteristic is integrated into the App Management section of Internet Nanny, it is as well available for free on the Zift website, along with a number of articles on digital parenting. Depending on how plugged in yous are to currently popular apps, it's a peachy resource to help guide your decisions on new apps for your kids.
Cyberspace Nanny: YouTube monitoring
This allows you to view a list with all the videos that your child has watched on YouTube, along with any searches they have made. As it is purely monitoring, you tin't cake anything from here, just it'due south a nice manner to go along tabs on your child's YouTube consumption.
YouTube is part of the Social Media Protection that I covered in App Management which allows you to apply your Net Nanny content filters to YouTube. If you want to actively manage what they come across on YouTube without restricting them to YouTube Kids, those tools are your best solution.
Internet Nanny review: Bottom line
Net Nanny remains the best parental-control solution on the market today. Its web-filtering technology just vastly outperforms that of every other service that I tested with regards to both efficacy and depth of features.
The apps and web portal are well designed and intuitive to employ, and the overall feature set up at present ticks just almost every box for united states of america. The two missing pieces are complete app management on iOS — for that you need to plough to OurPact — and text/call monitoring which is now limited to Qustodio amongst the services that I reviewed. The i other business organization could be Internet Nanny's yearly subscription cost, and if that's a problem, so you could look to Kaspersky Safe Kids, which is an incredible value.
With all of that said, I think Cyberspace Nanny is well worth the loftier price considering its superior web filtering, extensive features and wide platform support.
Source: https://www.tomsguide.com/reviews/net-nanny
Posted by: shawhappereand.blogspot.com
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