Savvy parents use safety measures wherever possible. With technology, dangers lurk both online and within apps that children use.
Fortunately, parental control apps and services can limit screen time and phone usage while filtering the websites your child can access when surfing the web. Here are our parent-tested favorites this year. Get some peace of mind while you help your kids stay safe out there!
Bark comes in two plans: Bark Jr. ($5/month or $49/year), designed for families with young children, and Bark Premium ($14/month or $99/year) for families with kids of all ages. Both plans cover families of every size, have location-sharing features and alerts, screen time management features, and filtering for the websites your children can visit.
In addition, the Bark Premium parental control plan gives busy parents peace of mind by monitoring more than 30 social networks 24/7. The app also monitors YouTube usage, texts, emails, cyberbullying, online predation, and suicidal ideas.
Price: Bark, Jr. is $5 monthly/Bark Premium is $14 monthly after a free trial.
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What We Like
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Available on smartphones, tablets, and PCs.
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Filters web content on all browsers.
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Free trial available.
While it requires a bit of an investment, Qustodio is a popular monitoring app for parents, and for good reason. The app is available on iOS, Android, Windows, Mac, and Kindle and allows parents to receive daily reports on the apps their kids are using and how much time they spend on their devices.
Parents can set specific screen time windows, outside of which the device becomes unusable, and the advanced web filtering limits the content minors can view while surfing the web, whether they use Safari, Firefox, Edge, or another browser. A free account can offer basic protection on one device, but multi-device monitoring requires a membership.
Price: Free; Premium plans start at $54.95.
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What We Like
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Can limit screen time, video games, and apps.
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Free to use with Xbox, Windows, Android, iOS.
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Generates activity summaries.
It can be difficult for parents to monitor their children’s gaming, but the Microsoft Family Safety app is a free set of tools to monitor and limit what their children do on Xbox One, Windows 11, and Android devices using Microsoft Edge.
This app includes free web filtering, app blocking, and scheduling for up to six family members. The app’s content filters create a safe environment for children of any age by designating suitable sites that are always allowed and never allowed.
Price: Free with in-app purchases available.
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The Google Family Link app is a free tool that parents can use to control the apps their child downloads on their mobile phone, how much screen time they’re allowed each day, and the content they can purchase.
Once it is set up, the Google Family Link app, which is available on iOS and Android devices, can also track the location of the connected smartphone, making this service a solid child tracking app.
Google Family Link is a fantastic tool with almost all the features that other apps charge a monthly membership fee for.
Price: Free
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Sony
What We Like
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Filter game and media content, including DVDs.
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Parents can limit how long children play games.
Sony’s PlayStation 4 doesn’t have a standalone app solution for controlling kids’ screen time like the Xbox One and Nintendo Switch, but it does feature some solid settings built into the console that can be accessed in Settings > Parental Controls/Family Management > Family Management.
Once activated, these parental control settings can limit how much time children can spend playing video games each day and between what hours. Parents can also select which age ratings they’ll allow for video games, digital media, and DVD and Blu-ray discs, which can bring peace of mind whenever the kids play alone.
Price: Free.
Nintendo
Nintendo’s Nintendo Switch Parental Controls app is a free app for iOS and Android that connects directly to your Nintendo Switch. After it’s connected, the app monitors play time limits, what games are played, and who’s been playing. All the data displays within the app in an easy-to-understand fashion, making monitoring video game screen time incredibly easy.
The true power of the app lies in its ability to restrict how much family members can play the Nintendo Switch per day. Parents can set time limits in the app in just a few seconds and suspend the console completely after bedtime.
Price: Free.
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OpenDNS
What We Don’t Like
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Only works with your internet connection, not mobile.
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Setup is fairly complex and can take a while.
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It’s a service. Not an app.
OpenDNS FamilyShield is a free service that prevents everyone who connects to your internet connection from accessing adult or inappropriate content when online.
What’s particularly impressive is how the security settings affect every single device in a household, from personal computers to smartphones and tablets.
Price: Free.
OpenDNS FamilyShield isn’t an actual app you download to your iPhone or Android smartphone, but it’s a service that can help control what content the mobile devices in your house can access.
ESET
What We Like
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A lot of functionality in the free version.
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Monitors web, app, and other usage.
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30-day trial of premium features.
What We Don’t Like
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$69.99 annual subscription needed for all features.
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The web filtering is good, but isn’t foolproof.
While many parental monitoring apps on Android require a premium fee to unlock all of their features, ESET offers a surprising amount for its free version.
Once parents download and install the app on a tablet or smartphone, they can monitor the websites their children visit, limit what apps they can install from the Google Play Store, set time limits for certain apps, limit how much money they can spend on digital purchases, and view a basic activity report.
The yearly premium subscription unlocks web filtering, which restricts what kids can see online, and also provides a tracking tool for parents to pinpoint where their children are in the real world—but these are features offered elsewhere for free.
Parents can also monitor all activity from the ESET website, which is convenient for households with only a few smart devices.
Price: Free; Premium version for $69.99 annually.
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