Intego ContentBarrier X4 Compared to Apple’s Parental Controls

Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard includes expanded parental controls, which allow parents to choose some limits regarding what their children can access while using their Macs. The following is a comparison of the two types of parental control systems, showing why Intego ContentBarrier X4 remains far superior to Apple’s parental controls in Leopard.

• ContentBarrier works on Mac OS X Jaguar, Panther, Tiger and Leopard (10.2.8 or later). Apple’s new parental controls runs only on Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard.
• ContentBarrier works on Mac computers with a PowerPC G3 processor. Apple’s parental controls only run on Leopard-compatible Macs, which have G4 processors at 867 MHz or faster.
• ContentBarrier has an easy-to-use assistant that walks you through the process of setting up parental controls for your children. With Apple’s parental controls, you must make all settings manually, through a series of preference panes and tabs.
• ContentBarrier lets you use preset profiles to different children. With Apple’s parental controls, you must change settings for each user, one by one.
• ContentBarrier lets you schedule Internet access for any time of the day. You can choose a start and end time, or you can choose several periods. You can set these limits individually for each day of the week. With Apple’s parental controls, you can only set overnight limits (from bedtime to morning) and total access time during the day. You can only set these limits for weekdays or weekends.
• ContentBarrier lets you block access to specific protocols, such as streaming music and video, peer-to-peer, and newsgroups. Apple’s parental controls does not allow you to block specific protocols.
• ContentBarrier has an Anti-Predator mode, which protects children from predatory messages in chat sessions. Apple’s parental controls have no such protection.
• ContentBarrier’s Anti-Predator mode works with all chat clients. Apple’s parental controls only affect iChat.
• ContentBarrier lets you filter web access by category. Many different categories are available, such as pornography, violence, racism, hacking, etc. With Apple’s parental controls, you can only “try to limit access to adult websites.”
• ContentBarrier’s web filters are updated regularly to provide optimal protection. Apple’s parental controls have no such updatable filters.
• ContentBarrier can redirect search engine requests to family-friendly search engines. Apple’s parental controls have no such feature.
• ContentBarrier can send full logs of user activity to a parent or administrator. Apple’s parental controls have no such feature.
• ContentBarrier can let you set restrictions even on users with administrator’s accounts. Apple’s parental controls don’t let you apply restrictions to administrator’s accounts.
• ContentBarrier has additional password protection so even administrators can be prevented from changing its settings. Any administrator can change settings to Apple’s parental controls.