Protect your family on the internet

When the page appears, click the ‘Download K9 today for free’ link to the right of the K9 website and fill in the licence request form that is displayed. Click the ‘Request License’ button and an email containing the required registration code will be sent out. The message you receive will also contain a link that you need to click to download the software. Double-click the installation file when the download is complete and, when it is requested, copy and paste the licence number from the email. You will also need to choose a password, and it is important to remember this as it is needed to change settings.

After restarting Windows, K9 Web Protection will be ready for configuration. Double-click the desktop shortcut that has been created to visit the web page used to set up options. Click one of the two Setup links and enter the password that you chose in Step 1. By default, a number of different categories of website will be blocked but it is likely that a little customisation will be needed. Select the Custom option and use the various tick boxes that are displayed to choose the type of website that should blocked. By ticking the box labelled Unrated, access will be blocked to any site that has not been assigned a category. Click Save after selecting the required options.

When selecting the types of site to block, it is a good idea to select the Proxy Avoidance option as this will block access to sites that may provide information about how to override K9 Web Protection’s settings. Click the Time Restrictions link to the left-hand side of the page to configure access times. Select the Custom option and use the timetable to indicate when internet access should be allowed on each day of the week. ­ Just click on a time square to turn it red and block access, or click and drag across a series of squares before selecting Block Access from the menu that appears. Click Save and then move to the Website Exceptions section.

Web filtering is a tricky science and it is not always possible to correctly identify sites. To ensure that access to a site is always blocked or always allowed, enter the website address in the text box and click ‘Add to List’. Repeat as necessary and click Save. To choose what happens when K9 blocks a site, move to the Blocking Effects section. Use the tick boxes to indicate whether a sound should be played when a site is blocked and whether the option to override the block should be displayed. Web access can also be denied for a time if a number of pages are blocked in a short period.

To block access to sites that contain certain words in their address, move to the URL Keywords section. Enter keywords in the text box, clicking ‘Add to List’ after each entry. Words that are added by accident, misspelt or no longer needed can be removed from the block list by clicking the red cross next to an entry. By default, keywords entered here will be displayed on the page that appears when a site is blocked, but this option can be disabled by ticking the box labelled Hide Keywords. Click Save to continue and move to the Advanced section where a few final settings can be configured.

By default, K9 Web Protection will enable the safe-searching feature of a number of popular search sites, including Google. Just ensure that the Force Safe Search option is selected. To prevent this from being overridden, tick the Block Unsafe Search option as well. To be certain that all web traffic is being filtered, make sure that the ‘Filter secure traffic’ option is ticked and then click Save. By moving to the Password/Email section, it is possible to change the administrator password used to control access to K9 Web Protection. It is a good idea to do this occasionally. You can also choose which email address should be used for email notifications of web activity. Finally, head to the K9 Update section.

You should check here periodically to see if there are any updates available for K9 Web Protection. Any updates will be listed on the right of the page and can be installed by clicking the link that appears. Now that the program has been fully configured, web activity can be monitored. Click the View Internet Activity link at the top of the page to get started. The first page that is displayed shows a basic overview of internet activity, including information about the categories of sites that have been visited. To the right of the page, statistics about the number of sites that have been accessed and how many have been blocked can be seen, and administrative events are shown below this.

Activity logs can be deleted by making a selection from the dropdown menu at the bottom of the page (‘Clear all but last 90 days’, ‘Clear all but last 30 days’, and ‘Clear all’) and then clicking the Clear Logs button. More detailed logs are available by clicking the View Activity Detail link to the left of the page. Full details of all the websites that have been visited are displayed here and the dropdown menu can be used to organise the information by day or by month. To the left of each website address that is listed is information explaining why that particular site was blocked or why access was permitted.

Vista users can use its Parental Controls feature as an alternative to K9 Web Protection. To get the most out of this, it is important to set up individual user accounts for everyone who will be using the computer so that different access rights can be granted. Head to the User Account Control Panel and, after ensuring that the administrator account has a password, create as many other accounts as are required. Click the ‘Manage another account’ link followed by ‘Create a new account’ and ensure that the ‘Standard user’ option is selected. Back at the Manage Accounts screen, click ‘Set up Parental Controls’ and click the icon representing one of the user accounts to be restricted.

Select the option labelled ‘On, enforce current settings’ and move to the Windows Vista Web Filter section. After indicating that some websites should be blocked, use the option to indicate whether sites should be blocked according to their URL or their content before clicking OK. The Time Limits section of Parental Controls can be used to restrict internet access to particular hours of the day. There are also options to block access to games with higher age ratings as well as preventing particular programs from being run. Once these options have been configured, repeat the process for any other user accounts. Restrictions will immediately be put in place and internet activity can be monitored by clicking the ‘View activity reports’ link to the left of the window.