Overview
When it comes to keeping people safe online, McAfee is one of the biggest names in the business. Therefore, it’s no surprise that they’ve put their toe in the waters of internet monitoring and parental control software. McAfee Total Protection has most of the safety features that parents are looking for, but it is a bit lacking in some other very important areas.
Pros
McAfee has one of the best pornography blockers available on the market today. This isn’t surprising given the reputation the company has for ensuring online safety. McAfee Total Protection offers an all-in-one website blocker, pornography filter, social network monitoring, and cyberbullying protector. That’s quite an expansive list of features and services, and it’s hard to find another program that has the same breadth and variety of feature that you get with McAfee total protection.
Total Protection is also easy to install. Some of the other popular parental control software has complicated setup issues due to the effort to offer customized profiles giving different users different levels of access.
Additionally, you can get reports on your child’s internet use. You can receive the reports through email either weekly or daily, and you can also view them manually at any time. This gives you an incredibly amount of ability to analyze your child’s internet use to make sure they’re not engaging in any dangerous or risky behavior.
Cons
One of the problems that we had with McAfee is that it doesn’t have any kind of searchable knowledge base that you can search if you have questions. As a result, you’ll have to navigate your way through the huge list of products that McAfee offers in order to find the answers to the questions you have.
Another drawback for McAfee is that it doesn’t offer any kind of screenshot sharing or monitoring. While this isn’t strictly necessary, it doesn’t speak well for the company given the sheer amount of services and products they offer.
Finally, McAfee doesn’t send automated cyberbullying notifications. Therefore, you’ll have to go through the chat logs from the program manually in order to make sure that your child isn’t at risk of abuse from their peers, or engaging in abuse themselves.
Verdict
McAfee is a well-known internet security firm that makes quality products. Total Protection is an excellent piece of parental control software that helps keep your child safe online while giving them the freedom they need to grow and learn.