No activity logged

CandaceF · ‎04-18-2012

I just installed Norton Family Online yesterday. My son went online this morning. I got 6 emails about attempts to visit a blocked site, and an email that the Safety Minder plug-in is disconnected or disabled. I signed in and found no activity logged. My son's avatar shows the little green icon.

Obviously, the program is working on some level because I received the emails. Unfortunately, I can't figure out what lead to the blocking, because I don't know what the sites are that he visited. All he remembers are a couple of the games he was playing. He's 8 and just clicks on any link that looks interesting, which is why I installed Norton Family Online. It's kind of useless without the activity log.

As for the email about the Safety Minder plug-in, that one's a mystery. I have both Explorer and Firefox, but he would have been using Explorer and he doesn't have a clue what a plug-in is. I'm going to log into windows under his name and see what happens if I try to go to sites in blocked categories.

Norton Safety Minder Version 2.3.0.18

Windows 7

CandaceF · ‎04-18-2012

Interesting side note: I went in my son's browser history. He did searches for Dogs 101 Games (Animal Planet) and Beyblades Games, then went to those sites. (Whatever got blocked must have been ads or something else that originated from those sites.) When I went to the Animal Planet website, a got a Norton warning that facebook connect is a blocked site. (Kind of odd, since I didn't click on the facebook connect icon.) Just out of curiosity, I typed "facebook.com" into IE's address field. The address automatically changed to https://www.facebook.com. And, lo and behold, there was FACEBOOK. Amazing, since all social networking sites are supposed to be blocked! I must admit this isn't really a problem for me, given that my 8 year old hasn't expressed the least interest in facebook, but I'm sure the parents of older children wouldn't be happy about this.

CandaceF · ‎04-18-2012

Since I probably won't get any response, I went ahead and tried to re-install Safety Minder. Big mistake. Now it doesn't block anything, in addition to showing no activity. And yes, I checked that it was enabled in both IE and Firefox. And yes, my child is shown on the account. And yes, his computer is shown on the account. And yes, the little paw icon is there and enabled. I don't know what else to try since I don't see that anyone else has gotten a solution either.

KatieQ · ‎04-09-2009

Hi CandaceF,

For the plug-in message, please check the browser(s) that your child uses to see if the Norton Safety Minder add-ons is enabled. You can find it by clicking Tools -> Manage Add-ons in IE.

After you have the Norton Safety MInder add-ons enabled, please let us know if you get any activity logged or not.

As for blocking facebook website, the program records the website was accessed by the children if children visit facebook via https://www.facbook.com. The program was designed to encourage the communications between parents and children.

Thanks,

Katie

CandaceF · ‎04-18-2012

"For the plug-in message, please check the browser(s) that your child uses to see if the Norton Safety Minder add-ons is enabled. You can find it by clicking Tools -> Manage Add-ons in IE.

After you have the Norton Safety MInder add-ons enabled, please let us know if you get any activity logged or not."

Umm, my last message stated that the add-on was enabled in both IE and Firefox. There has been no activity logged since I originally installed, despite the fact that I have gotten some emails regarding blocked sites.

"As for blocking facebook website, the program records the website was accessed by the children if children visit facebook via https://www.facbook.com."

I don't get what you are trying to say. I went to the NOF settings and there are 27 categories checked off to be blocked. One of the categories is "Social Networking". Stupid me for assuming that "Social Networking" included Facebook, Twitter, etc. And stupid me for assuming the "blocked" meant...well, BLOCKED! FYI, I later went and specifically added facebook.com and twitter.com to be blocked and it worked. I tested the addresses and they were both blocked and I received emails. Unfortunately, this means that the categories I chose to be blocked don't work; you can only block specific addresses. Just to be certain, I tried another category. Are you supposed to be able to view porn even though your program claims it will be blocked?

"The program was designed to encourage the communications between parents and children."

Despite the condescending nature of your remark, I will reply. I do communicate with my child. Unfortunately, it's hard for an 8 year old to understand why internet sites have ads that look like children's games, but turn out to be porn, scams, etc. He clicks on a picture and it redirects to another site, then he calls me over to fix it because he doen't know what he did to make the browser redirect. He doesn't WANT to go to those type of sites. I want to block them so he doesn't get off the site he intended to be on.

Norton claims that the program can block certain categories and also log activity. It does neither. I was hoping for a solution, but it sounds like you're telling me the program is intentionally made this way "to encourage the communications between parents and children."

SkyKnight · ‎11-28-2011

Do not bother replying to that. That is a pre-defined message that these guys are catering around all over the place. Check other threads, no matter what the issue, you will find the exact reply everywhere.

CandaceF · ‎04-18-2012

@ SkyKnight - I figured as much...some employee with no knowledge of the product, entering keywords from my post into their "answer" database and regurgitating whatever it tells them. I replied more out of frustration, and maybe a little hope that a more knowledgeable employee might get the message and offer a real solution.

KatieQ · ‎04-09-2009

HI CandaceF,

Thanks for the message.

For the plug-in issue, I think we were writing the posts (your post stating the add-on was enabled) at about the same time, so I didn't see your latest update when I posted mine. I'm sorry about that.

You are right about facebook should get blocked if the category of "Social Networking" is blocked. But I think the issue here is not about category of facebook or it's on the block list or not. It's if a user accesses facebook with http or with https. As you know the forum can be viewed by the children who try to tamper the system, so it kind of prevents me from elaborating what I want to say. If you'd like to know more about his, please send you a private message, so we can discuss more about this.

I'm sorry for the misunderstanding. I can see why you feel this way after reading your further comments about the program encouraging communications. I was just trying to explain the approach of the program. If you have any additional thoughts on this matter, please let me now.

We are checking into this issue with no activity logged.

Thanks,

Katie

CandaceF · ‎04-18-2012

As for the facebook issue, I tested it by typing in every possible address combination and it let me through every time. That's when I put a specific block on "facebook.com" only, and it worked for http, https, etc. Like I said, facebook itself is not really an issue. My son has no interest in facebook yet. The greater issue is that NOF is not blocking the categories that I have checked off in the settings. The other example of this that I gave earlier was that I was able to access a porn site, even though it should have been blocked. And I'm not talking about being tricky and trying to look for loopholes in the program. I typed "xxx.com" in the address field just to see what would happen and I got a porn site.

Maybe I'm going at this the wrong way, going into detail about what has gone wrong. This is a quote from NOF about it's features:

"An easy-to-read activity report shows you at a glance ALL the web sites your kids visit, or attempt to visit. You can visit the sites your kids have been to and block specific sites or types of sites."

You said the activity report problem is being looked into, so I'll have to wait on that. I discovered how to "block specific sites" when I found the facebook problem. So, that just leaves the "types of sites" feature. Tell me how to do that. (Aside from checking off the little category boxes, as I believe I have stressed that this has not worked.)