I am a huge fan of Symantec.Being a system engineer I am well up on today's security. I tried several parent controls in the past. All free. OFN and Windows Live Family Safety are the two top choices. K-9 web protection is good but can be too sensitive. I tried OFN last year and used it for a bit. Then I switched to WLFS and stayed there. But WLFS does not monitor searches so I switched back to OFN .But OFN email is too slow to respond. You can easily disable it if a child is allowed to use Admin rights. I ran the Norton Uninstall Tool and never was emailed about OFN being uninstalled or off.Several other issues.But for anyone using OFN and having similar issues you can now use Norton DNS with Family Filtering. Plus using OFN means another program running in the back round. A DNS does not run in the back round. Kudos to that. Keep in mind that Norton DNS will not give you details like OFN but if all you are doing is trying to keep your kids safe Norton DNS is a perfect choice. Both of OFN's processes can easily be terminated by Process Hacker.
I also performed another test. My Son has a standard user account on my laptop. I had him log in and uninstall Google Chrome.Which if you use Chrome installs for each person and not in program files. He uninstalled Chrome with no issues and then download a fresh copy of Chrome. Installed Chrome and the OFN extension was not there. My son is 13. He was allowed to surf FB and several other previously block sites. I was there with him to verify as my tester. My Son and I both use Yahoo email and just about every email he got was filtered by OFN when there was nothing wrong or pornographic with them. I was constantly logging into the OFN site and approving things so he could view them. Maybe this is how it works and is normal but a big PITA.
Hello NAHybrid,
Thanks for the information, but I would like to get a bit more details as some of this doesn't appear correct to me.
Uninstalling Google Chrome doesn't change the fact that OFN will still be monitoring URLs, it's done at the network layer not at the application layer. There is a plugin, that aids in determining top level URLs vs. embedded ones to cut down on the noise level.
Are you saying that it used to block FB then he unsintalled/installed Chrome and now it doesn't?
Email being filtered is something I have not heard of before, are you trying to create a walled garden? What category are the blocks saying is the issue with the email?
Thanks Matt. And yes FB use to be blocked and after uninstalling Chrome and reinstalling it it was no longer blocked cause the extension was not there. Emails being block was certain pictures and stuff like that. I sent him a email with some Christmas pictures attached. He could not see them. I had blocked entries when I logged into NOF site. Also my girl friend sent her daughters a Portable North Pole greeting. The greeting was block cause it contained a FB link. She had to forward the emails to herself then have them view them. Here is the site. The email issues I speak of where there 2 years ago and still there. Even my girl friend is constantly having to approve sites which are legit for a 12-14 year old. Most of what was blocked just said "unknown catergory" or something like that. I deleted all the history,computer and my Son from the NOF site.
http://www.portablenorthpole.tv/home
I will have QA take a look at the Chrome install/uninstall thing with FB.
As for http://www.portablenorthpole.tv/home, that is categorized as "Entertainment & Music" as well as "Kids", so unless you have those categories blocked it should show up.
When NOF blocks something it will tell you the category, which category showed up?
I did not change any settings. When you install NOF it asks the age of your child and applies the appropriate settings automatically. I am not aruging here. I am merely giving you my feedback. That is all. Nothing else. As I said you can also easily kill NOF with Process Hacker. I could reinstall NOF but after a few weeks of using it and constantly approving legit sites I got feed up and went with Norton DNS and used the family setings. WLFS was easier to use but lacked the search results.
By the way Killing NOF with Process Hacker will produce an alert to the parent that something is wrong. So although "simple" to kill, hard to disguise from the parent.
Also your sense of "legit" sites for a 13 year old may be different than our default, that is a parenting decision of course, so one would expect to have to configure to your style of parenting.
When you are constantly logging in to approve various sites and emails just your child can enjoy there pc that is a problem. And getting an email 24 hours later about NOF being terminated is not accetable because its too late.NetNanny alerts you instantaneously. Please do not be little my comments. This is my experience with NOF that I sharing. Take it as constructive criticism and learn from it. Thanks. If you want I can reinstall NOF and copy and paste every problem I encountered. The alerts do not get process immediately. Also why wasn't I alerted when I uninstalled NOF with the Norton Uninstaller?
I am merely trying to point out that the Title of this thread is Great Product, Too Many Bugs. I have yet to see any specific Bugs. It is constructive feedback and would gladly take it.
You want an instant notification that your child has removed a product or killed the service, I understand NetNanny does that, but would not be able to if your child removed the network cable, killed the service etc... kids have ways around everything, including safeboot, usb boot.
As to your last question why weren't you alerted when you used the "norton uninstaller" are you asking about uninstalling using a separate tool or the one that came with Norton Safety Minder. If it's the one with Norton Safety Minder, then it will ask you for your username and password before allowing you to uninstall.
ok but what if a child uses Norton Uninstaller? They can easily remove it.
I am not familiar with "norton uninstaller", where did you get that?
What? How is a Symantec employee not familiar with a tool you guys make. Let me put it this way.....Norton Removal Tool. Same thing. All a child needs to do is run this tool. There are a lot of parents who give there children Admin rights or do not put a password on there login. And if the use a password they are to dumb to use a decent enough password there kids cannot figure out. A good password should be at least 16 digits long and contain a combination of capital letters,lower case letters and numbers. A good password should also have nothing to do with you personally. My password is 16 digits long and has absolutely nothing to do with me or my family.
https://www-secure.symantec.com/norton-support/jsp/help-solutions.jsp?lg=english&ct=united+states&docid=20080710133834EN&product=home&version=1&pvid=f-home
I am quite familiar with the Norton Removal Tool, just didn't realize that was what "Norton Uninstaller" was.
The parent will be notified when there is no information coming from a computer that it used to see logging information from in the past. This cannot be circumvented by the child regardless of how they remove the software, again via NRT, USB boot, safemode, etc...
The username and password I was referencing was the one for your Norton Account, something you should not give to your child. We also highly recommend that parents do not give children Admin privileges because as an admin you can circumvent anything on the system.
Well 72 hours after running the Norton Removal Tool I was never notified nor was there anything being logged into NOF site. I also run a side business fixing pc's. Mainly removing malware. You really need to understand that most pc's user are clueless. People still create passwords using things like birthdays,anniversary,pet names and so on. I cracked my cousins password in a matter of 30 min. It was his dog's name and his own age. Not the dogs age. A parental control program should not be so easy to uninstall. Try uninstalling NetNanny easily.
As you are probably aware, there is no software out there that can protect itself from someone sitting physically in front on the machine. Having full access to the hardware / keyboard / network etc, makes any and all software easy to remove.
Very true but parents are relying on NOF to protect and monitor there children. How can it do that if it is so easily removed?
NOF does it's very best (in my opinion and a father of 3) to protect and monitor my children however I still have to parent. If they tamper with the system, they lose a privilege or time on the computer. No different than if I set a rule and they break it, there are consequences or appropriate punishments.
But my Son wasn’t doing anything. He was assisting me in testing NOF.