Two Internet Browsers For Kids Ages 2 To 10

09/20/10 15:12 Filed in: Browsers

By Marc Nogle - Manmade Productions LLC

The following article appeared September 18th, 2010 in the Wall Street Journal On-line, "On the Web, Children Face Intensive Tracking". If you are a parent, uncle/aunt, grandparent, friend self-charged with responsibility to protect the safety and welfare of children using laptops, computers, mobile devices, iDevices, etc..., I strongly suggest you read the article - it is brief and to the point.

The point is this. Unlike advertising and tracking in the analog world, the models used in the digital world are highly unregulated, elusive, and - not too infrequently - insidious and subversive. The market for kids products and services is enormous as every parent knows, wondering whether the spending madness will ever stop. It doesn't. Consider the exponential growth in kids television networks and programming over the last 10 years and the amount of money being dumped in this space."iCarly" and her clones ... give me a break! In the analog world, it's easier to curb the demand bypassing commercials with TiVo and a remote.

Not so easy for parents to control and manage content appropriate for their kids in the digital world - on the internet. Most popular browsers designed today - FireFox, Safari, Internet Explorer - are not designed with Kid's interests and safety in mind, making it easy for children to stumble upon inappropriate content, links, advertising. Of the three, I consider Safari (Mac/Windows) to be the best, Firefox second, and I don't recommend Internet Explorer for adults or children. The problem is that most adults who own computers don't understand the privacy and security control options within the browsers and even if they do, it's confusing - just like the settings on Facebook. Help! Right?

Help is here.

For PC & Mac Kid'OZ - review Keep Kids Safe Online: The KIDO'Z Browser by Rick Broida, PC World.

Kido'z AIR application review from RefreshingApps on Vimeo.

For Mac BumperCar - review Web Browsers For Kids by Jason Cranford Teague, Jocelyn Teague, Macworld.com

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