Colourful Threads

I think I’ve blogged about this before,but every time the K9 Blocked Page page comes up, I breathe a sigh of relief. It’s doing it’s job, and it’s doing it well.

K9 Web Protection from Blue Coat Systems is a free Internet filtering system.

A few years ago, before we had K9, the LittlePages opened an E-card from a friend that took them to the American Girl site. I let them poke around the site while I prepared dinner in the kitchen. (The computer is temporarily living at the kitchen door. We have been temporarily without baseboards for ten years. Sometimes it’s the small delusions that keep me going!))

Suddenly I heard one of the LittlePages say”Let’s go to the American Boys site”. They typed in a web address similar to the American Girls site and then I heard a comment about how it was sure taking a long time to load (the computer savviness of my children sometimes concerns me) Somehow, my dinner-drenched brain kicked into action and I went flying across the room screaming, “NO! TURN IT OFF! TURN IT OFF!”

In fear, my little ones slammed off the monitor button and scattered. I hit the reset button on the computer and rebooted. I checked the web address they had typed here. It told me that someone had rated the site as p0rnography. I’m so thankful that the Holy Spirit protected us. I’m so thankful that those images never loaded. And now I knew we needed some internet filtration.

I tried all the paid ones out there. When some of them were installed, they wouldn’t let me go to their competitor’s sites! Some of them were easy to break. Some of them were just too expensive.

Then I stumbled upon K9.

K9 offers an impressive, fully-customizable array of blocking categories. You can set them from high to none, or customize which categories or sites you want blocked. It will email usage reports and alerts, if you wish. It has a three-strikes-and-you’re-out option. It also allows custom overrides for blocked categories, either permanently or temporarily. It will monitor Peer2Peer and Instant Messaging. It can automatically set all online searches to a safe mode. You can limit time spent on the internet and prevent phishing. It maintains both a comprehensive list of categorized sites as well a real-time dynamic rating system for uncategorized sites.

Pheww. There’s probably more that I’m still not aware of, but for now I think I’m set.

K9 does not monitor email at all, but we solved that by having a single log-in on our computer. Nobody has their own desktop. We all share one desktop. Which means we all share the same email program. We all have our own email addresses, but we all use the same email program to look at them. That means I can read my children’s mail. And my children can read mine. Mutual accountability. Mutual respect.

None of us uses online chat or instant messaging. None of us maintains any social networking accounts, like Facebook (I hate being trendy!) I want my children to value fellowship and accountability, which I don’t think happens online. Many may disagree with me, but I’m not sure that you can really get to know someone online. You can’t be true friends with someone you have never met. You are merely acquaintances, if that. But I digress into another post.

Please be careful about what little eyes in your home see. Get K9. It’s free. It works.

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