Now that summer is virtually upon us, we wanted to help refresh your toolbox on internet safety.  As a parent, keeping kids safe from new threats is of paramount importance. This article is the culimation of our top three strategies and free tools you can use to keep your children safer this summer.
 
First, some common sense tips to pass along to your children:

• Never "agree" to a pop up that wants to download something.  Make sure children know how to properly close a nuisance window with the "X".
• Keep private information private - caution them about releasing personal information such as name, address, phone number or school.  Educate your children about predators posing as children their own age.
• Caution them against accepting "Friend" invitations from people they don't know personally.
• Keep personally identifiable information off the internet at ALL costs - now even "private profile" settings can be accessed by group members even if they are NOT friends, when your child agrees to play certain "free" online games and contests.

Second, what about keeping inappropriate content away from your children while they are home for the summer? We recommend and use a great piece of free software for online screening and logging called K9.  C-Net Parents Review says "Every parent should use this software." K9 is an internet filtering and control solution for the home and is a spyware free download available on C-Net here.  K9 has over 60 topics that can be blocked from viewing including the standards like "Adult Content, Illegal Drugs and Pornography."  But it also has the abillity to block "Pay to surf," "Chat/ instant messaging" and "Adult Humor." You choose what you don't want your child accessing.  If you change your mind, it is as simple as entering a password and allowing it.  
 
Third, you can choose to have K9 track internet logs to find out when and how the browser is being used.
    
This solution is great for customized family protection and monitoring. K9 is fairly simple to setup and straightforward to use.  If you don't feel comfortable doing it yourself, we are happy to help set it up for you.  Our software installation service is $165 and we will sit down with you and go over the customization features so that you can decide what you want or don't want your children to have access to.
 
We at Geeks on Call know that keeping our kids safe is our number one priority.  We hope you find these three strategies useful. If so, feel free to sign up for our free newsletter for monthly tips and advice.