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The Internet has so much information to offer specifically for children’s school work and other informational needs.  Unfortunately, there is half as much bad material as there are good lurking somewhere in the system that children should not lay their eyes on.  There is a need to make web browsing a safe experience for kids.

The main recommendation in keeping Internet use as kid-friendly as possible is to place the computers in a place where parents can constantly watch and guide children.  A child’s room is therefore not the best place for this and it would be much better to place it in a common area in the home.  If a computer is deemed necessary to be placed in a child’s room, Internet access has to be removed and instead substituted with learning software which children can use for study.  In this way, there is no chance for undesirable sites to be accidentally found by unsuspecting children.

Computers used by the family cannot do without protection against malware.  The proliferation of malware makes computer use significantly risky under the hands of children.  There are spyware, Trojans, and adware that can trick young computer users into allowing malicious software to infect the computer.  Without proper guidance,   children may be adventurous enough to do what they are prompted to do by malicious messages.

It is best to equip computers with hardware firewalls.  Computer users should be aware that there is a need to install a third party firewall software program even if the basic protection is already in place because of the operating system used.  Security software is required to be in place as well so that the necessary parental controls can be set.  The key to kid-friendly Internet use is still parental monitoring and guidance.