Kid-Proof Your PC with Glubble

Is your household filled with children that want to use your PC?  I have two children that love to use the computer, but they are only five and eight.  I have walked into the room and seen my now eight-year-old going onto Amazon.com and clicking links all over the place.  It worries me to allow them to use the computer unsupervised, but I know it is important for them to use the computer and get comfortable with using it.  I do not always have time to sit and watch every site they access.  To help put my mind at ease, we found a great browser called Glubble, which is installed as a Firefox add-on.

Glubble blocks any websites that are not pre-approved.  Better than just blocking websites, each child can click on their own name to enter their personal profile.  Each profile can save favorite websites to their homepage.  These links are saved as web page thumbnails for even the youngest user to be able to see which site they want to go to.  So what happens if your child goes to a website that isn’t pre-approved?  They will get a pop-up on the screen telling them a password must be entered to access this site.  This is one of the downfalls of Glubble the first day we had installed the add-on.  After a website is approved under a profile, it will remember that site is ok to access, but, each profile must have the website approved.  After the common sites your children enter are approved it is much easier to manage.  All afternoon the first day it was installed, all I heard was, “Mmmooommm, I need help with this!”  It is much better now and all of their favorite websites are approved.

An even cooler feature is the ability to send messages to other family members.  They are posted on a family wall, much like Facebook.  If my son or daughter needs to send me a message, they simply click my picture and can type a message.  I can reply to or leave my kids messages or reminders.

Parents have the ability to access their family page by going to the Glubble website and logging in.  From there you have access to the messages on your family wall and to all of the websites your children have been going to.  I can see that my son spends the majority of his time on Cartoon Network where as my daughter spends most of her time on either PBS Kids or Barbie.  It is interesting to see the difference in how their computer time is spent.

It has worked great for the kids and my daughter who is still learning to read is able to use the web without any troubles.  My son who is a little more familiar with the computer and able to read well can access some sites but I don’t have to worry about him clicking on links from pages or trying to buy a bunch of Pokemon cards off Amazon.com.    Overall I give Glubble two thumbs up.