The best parental control apps available

In the age of technology, most of us have contact with some form of electronic device. And of course children are no exception to this rule.

Parents often allow their children to have a device with which they can connect to the internet and play games, listen to music or communicate with their friends. However, they are often concerned about things like cyberbullying or too much time spent in front of the screen.

Fortunately, however, there is a wide variety of parental control apps that can untie a parent's hands and make them feel more secure when their child is using the family tablet or smartphone.

And remember that new dangers are constantly emerging, so educate your children about social media safety from an early age.

There are many different parental control apps that can meet your needs, depending on what your biggest concern is.

If you want better parental control, to limit the time of use, customise various monitoring settings and receive immediate alerts for unusual or dangerous activity, then the FamiSafe is a good choice. FamiSafe is the number one choice and one of the most comprehensive apps for monitoring your child's phone usage. With history tracking and suspicious activity capabilities to enforce time of use limits, FamiSafe has a lot to offer parents and is available for iOS, Android, Windows, Mac and Kindle Fire devices.

If you're worried about the amount of time kids spend in front of the screen, FamiSafe can monitor and limit their time and add apps to a list of allowed apps. Parents can find out how much time kids spend on their devices per day, week or month and can see which apps they spend the most time on.

Armed with this information, parents can easily create extensive time-of-use rules, as well as block apps. It's an extremely powerful tool for parents dealing with kids who spend long hours on their devices. In terms of parental controls, parents with iOS and Android devices now have the ability to restrict individual apps and in-app purchases. They can also monitor browsing history and enable Safe Search on devices iOS.

Το FamiSafe διαθέτει επίσης μια λειτουργία διαχείρισης περιεχομένου που αποτρέπει τις αγορές εντός εφαρμογής στο App Store και αποκλείει ακατάλληλο περιεχόμενο στα Apple Books. Οι γονείς μπορούν επίσης να λαμβάνουν διαφορετικούς τύπους ειδοποιήσεων στα κινητά τους όταν τα παιδιά που επισκέπτονται ύποπτους ιστότοπους, παρακολουθούν αποκλεισμένα βίντεο YouTube ή εγκαθιστούν άγνωστες εφαρμογές. Το FamiSafe είναι ιδανικό για γονείς που πρέπει να παρακολουθούν πολλά παιδιά ταυτόχρονα. Οι γονείς μπορούν να δουν τις κύριες διαδικτυακές δραστηριότητες πολλών παιδιών στον γονικό πίνακα ελέγχου και δεν χρειάζεται να κάνουν εναλλαγή μεταξύ διαφορετικών συσκευών.

If your concern is web browsing and social media safety, Qustodio is the best free parental control app for you.

The software is available for Windows PC, Mac, iOS, Android and Kindle devices and provides a comprehensive dashboard to help you monitor your child's online activity. The free version allows you to track your child's Facebook and Twitter connections and set time controls.

Qustodio Premium also allows you to monitor the child's location, block certain games and apps, track calls and text messages and more.

If what you need is to filter web content and set internet time limits for multiple children and devices, one of the best parental control apps for you is ContentWatch Net Nanny 7 with Family Protection Pass. This software system can be installed on up to 10 different PC, Mac or Android devices.

Το λογισμικό σάς επιτρέπει να δημιουργείτε διαφορετικά προφίλ/συνδέσεις για κάθε ένα από τα παιδιά σας και φιλτράρει αυτόματα το περιεχόμενο ιστού για κάθε χρήστη με βάση το αν ταιριάζει στο προφίλ Παιδιού, Προεφήβου, Εφήβου ή Ενηλίκου. Σας επιτρέπει επίσης να “καλύπτετε” τις βωμολοχίες σε ιστοσελίδες. Μπορείτε να ορίσετε χρονικά περιθώρια στο Διαδίκτυο για κάθε παιδί, χρησιμοποιώντας ένα εβδομαδιαίο πλέγμα χωρισμένο σε χρονικά τμήματα των 30 λεπτών.

The Family Protection Pass also comes with a free one-year license for Net Nanny Social, which can help you monitor your child's activity on social media sites.

If you want social media security and location tracking, the MamaBear app is the one you need. It has so many useful features like social media monitoring, location tracking and notifications and more.

With MamaBear you can monitor Instagram, Twitter and Facebook activity to know when they have new tags, check-ins or upload photos. You can also know when inappropriate language or evidence of bullying is posted on their profiles by creating a list of restricted words. You can even get alerts when your teen is driving or driving over a speed limit you've set.

For those who are solely concerned about the time their children spend on the device, Screen Time can help you with that. Screen Time allows parents to remotely monitor the time their children spend on their mobile devices.

The app allows you to set daily time limits, assign tasks for your kids to complete, see which apps your child uses the most, and more. It also offers instant pause, allowing parents to immediately pause their child's devices.

If you want to find child-friendly YouTube videos and exclude ads and links, choose YouTube Kids.

This version of YouTube offers a list of allowed videos with content suitable for children only. There's also a whole range of parental controls so you can tailor the experience to your family's needs. You can create custom child profiles, block channels or videos, keep tabs on your viewing history, turn search on or off, set a timer to limit kids' screen time, report videos, and more.

For those concerned about cyberbullying and cybersecurity monitoring, there's Bark. According to the app's Cyberbullying Prevention page, Bark analyzes all of your children's online activities to help identify cyberbullying.

It first takes into account a person's context and digital history to determine the real threats to them. It monitors 30+ of the most popular social media apps and platforms. Alerts parents and children of both victims and perpetrators using Bark and provides action-based recommendations.

Often the solution is simple: block the attacker online. In some cases, an incident is serious enough to start gathering evidence of bullying in case you need to take legal action.

Finally, if you want your child to be more aware of their obsession with the smartphone, there's Checky.

Teenagers are often addicted to their smartphones. While you will probably never fully cure your child of their obsession, you can help them find a healthier balance.

Checky is a free app that records how many times a day a user has checked their phone. You can compare how many times they checked their phone in a day or share and compare your stats with your friends and family members.

Moment, available for iPhone and Break Free, available for Android and soon iOS are also similar apps that aim to support healthier habits on the smartphone.

We should not forget that technology has provided us with many valuable tools, such as some parental control apps, that can protect children from online dangers.