Many children have easy access to the internet via tablets, smartphones, and laptops. Not surprisingly, there are also potentially dangerous websites and apps that can be found online. Parental control apps allow parents to restrict the activities of their children on their devices.
Parental control apps allow parents to monitor what their children are doing on their phones, no matter where they may be. This is in contrast to a parental router that allows parents control which websites their children can access.
The best parental control apps offer everything, including location tracking, call and SMS monitoring, as well as real-time alerts. This app can be used to give parents peace of mind, regardless of whether the child is at school or home.
With so many apps to choose from, it can be overwhelming for parents to select the right app for their family. We compared and ranked the top parental control apps to help you narrow your choices.
Family Orbit
Family Orbit, like any parental control app is there to protect your children online. Parents like you can use it to monitor their children with a variety of powerful features. This app is for safety and security of the entire family.
Your children, teenagers, and even elderly parents can use it. Family Orbit is a parental control application that allows you to monitor your children’s safety. You can monitor their activity, who they are talking to, and what they’re seeing on the phone.
A parental control app is essential to give you peace of mind. It will allow you to monitor your children’s activities and set limits to prevent them from accessing inappropriate content. The key features of this app include:
- Monitor your phone usage. You can control their phone usage before their phone controls them. You can make sure your children only make the right connections and not the wrong ones.
- Location tracking. Family Orbit GPS Tracker allows you to track where your children are at any time. Family Orbit will help you know if your children are safe.
- Detecting serious issues. This app detects bullying, inappropriate content and sexting. The app will alert you immediately if there are any problems and scans the area for inappropriate content such as porn and gore.
Net Nanny
Net Nanny is our favorite parental control app. It has an intuitive design, excellent web-filtering technology, and analyzes pages instead of blindly blocking them. You can also create filters. Net Nanny is the closest parental-control app to have feature parity between Android and iOS.
Net Nanny can track and display your child’s exact location as well as their history and allow you to set time limits and schedules on both Android and iOS. You can block over 100 apps from your child’s iPhone; the Android version allows you to block all.
Kaspersky Safe Kids
Kaspersky Safe Kids, like Net Nanny allows you to monitor and control the activities of your children on both smartphones and PCs. Kaspersky’s paid plan is $15 per annum (with a 7-day trial), and allows you to monitor and control your children’s activities on PCs and Macs. You can also filter websites, set screen-time limits and manage other apps.
The paid plan monitors social media and provides location tracking and geofencing. These functions work in both iOS or Android. App management on iOS is limited to blocking apps with age restrictions.
A feature that allows you to block certain types of YouTube searches (opens in new window) and view your YouTube search history if paid users is available. It works on Windows, iOS, Android and Macs.
Norton Family
Norton Family’s features and power are perfect for Android (and Windows), families with many children. It offers nearly every feature that a parent would want from one the most powerful parental control apps. The location-tracking, time scheduling, web filtering and -monitoring capabilities of this service work on iOS and Android.
However, Norton’s time allowances only apply to its Windows and Android software. The iOS app doesn’t support app management. Norton Family, however, has strong web filters even on iOS. It monitors Hulu and YouTube as well as a new feature called School Time, which keeps children focused during remote-learning classes.
OurPact
OurPact was once the best parental-control app on iPhones. Apple temporarily removed OurPact from the App Store. It can block or manage any iOS app just like it can on Android. OurPact allows kids to be involved in the management of their screen time. It also helps with scheduling.
Premium Plus plans allow you to take screenshots of the child’s device even on IOS. You can also block texting and messaging apps, even though you cannot read the messages. Its website filtering blocks porn and the interface for time management is somewhat clunky. OurPact can tell you where your child is. It also has geofencing that will show you when your child arrives at or leaves certain locations. However, it cannot tell you where they have been.