I’m upgrading my kids’ computer and have a question about set-up. On the old mac, I whitelisted specific web sites that I allowed. This worked fine, but now my oldest is wanting to do a bit more searching and I’m wondering how good the automatic limiting of adult sites works.
I would prefer using the mac controls to buying other software, if at all possible.
The automatic filtering seems to work pretty well. Though I can’t say I tried typing a bunch of trash sites into it to find out. 🙂
I’d say it works well enough that it tends to get in the way. A lot of sites are now being served up securely (https instead of http), which is a good thing for security. But the filtering can’t “see” into secure pages so it just blocks them all unless you specifically allow them.
We’ve also used the free version of OpenDNS, which you set up on your router to filter for the whole house before it even gets to your computers.
Doug, Open DNS looks perfect for us. I can’t figure out how to find the preferences for our router. We have the Airport Extreme. My tech guy (aka: husband is in the middle east). Can you help?
You use AirPort Utility to access it, which should be in your Mac’s Applications -> Utilities folder. Then I think you can find the DNS servers under the Internet icon and the TCP/IP tab.