TalkTalk HomeSafe

A few days ago saw National Safer Internet Day - a day dedicated to educating parents on how to keep their children safe online. This barely applies to my little family at the moment as Dexter is too young to go online (21 months). In fact, when Craig or I have been complacent and left the laptop within reach, Dexter prefers to rip off keyboard keys rather than click on anything he shouldn’t. It’s a royal pain in the backside but very cute to watch him bash away on the keys like mummy.

In time though, parental filters will become a must in our house. We live in an age where children are increasingly exposed to inappropriate content, from pornography to extreme violence to stupidity (think NekNominate), and the grooming phenomenon is one that puts fear into the heart of most of us. I don’t believe older children should search the internet from behind a rose-tinted screen as this promotes an unhealthy appetite for provocative and explicit content. I think instead that education and parental surveillance is the best way to encourage a sensible and responsible relationship with the online world. BUT I do want to protect Dexter for as long as possible from unsavory content.

I’ve written before about the corrosive influence of pornography, and it’s impact on the psychology of young impressionable boys. Sadly, I don’t think this is something I can wholly legislate against. At some point, he will see things I won’t want him to, and at some point this will leave an indelible imprint on his way of thinking about women, men and the role of sex in relationships. This is something that physically hurts me, but something I’d be wrong to deny him.

For this reason, we will apply filters, we will dissuade him from creating social media accounts, we will create his own computer profiles (to stop him accessing our search data, and monitor his). But this is a responsibility that Craig and I won’t take lightly.

Yet it’s not just children that need protecting from the internet, viruses and spyware are just as likely to ruin the internet for adults as they are children. With ID Theft being a very lucrative business for online scammers, it’s never been more important to stay safe and respect the need to keep our private details under wraps. I’ve lost count of the number of the annoying pop-ups that promise me iPads, holidays, and cash if I just click ‘here’. Although I’m sensible to close them down, can we really say our children won’t be tempted?

TalkTalk Homesafe is one of many products in a parent’s armory to safeguard their children from internet nasties, and there are a whole host of online resources just a few mouse clicks away. If you’re a TalkTalk customer, HomeSafe is absolutely free and easy to set up. It protects every device connected to your home network (laptops, tablets and mobile phones) so you have peace of mind that any searching behind closed doors in your home is secure. Given there’s no downloads or faffing around with updates, HomeSafe can be activated quickly and painlessly and won’t slow down your searching.

There are 3 key features:

Kid Safe - Helps protect your kids from seeing inappropriate websites, with easy to set content categories
Virus Alerts - Helps stop viruses before they reach your front door and alerts you if you visit a suspected site
Homework Time - Helps prevent distractions during homework time by allowing you to set time limits to filter social networking and gaming websites

From the home page (you control your account online) each filter can be snapped on or off through simply ticking a box. This means you can apply the Kid Safe feature to block inappropriate websites during the day when your children are awake, and click it off at night when it’s no longer necessary. The homework time works in similar way and simply allows parents to stop pleasure-searches distracting children from completing their homework - you set the times so that it works for you and your family when needed.

As I’m sure you’ll appreciate, the virus alerts aren’t solely for your children. The tool scans a website before opening it and alerts you if the page contains viruses. I had a mini play with this and found it quick and easy to use. It didn’t affect or slow down my searching so was more than fit for purpose. As my Craig is ultra vigilant about these things though, he’s popped Norton Anti Virus on our laptop which does the same thing.

TalkTalk also currently have a fun quiz developed with 1000 7-14 year olds, to see how your internet knowledge compares to theirs. It’s only a few short questions that will test your knowledge of social media and common internet slang. I’m pleased to say I scored higher than a ten-year old, but shocked my internet age is calculated as twelve - (seems MIRL doesn’t mean what I thought it did). Why not have a go yourself?