Windows Live OneCare Family Safety
Encyclopedia
Windows Live Family Safety, developed by Microsoft
, is free parental monitoring and content-control software
for Microsoft Windows
under the Windows Live
brand.
family of products. Web Filtering and Activity Reporting were previously features in Windows Vista Parental Controls. They were removed from the Windows 7 release when they were moved to Windows Live
. On September 30, 2010, Windows Live Family Safety 2011 (Wave 4) was released as part of Windows Live Essentials 2011
.
Service Pack 2 with the Platform Update for Windows Vista, Windows 7 (32-bit or 64-bit editions), Windows Server 2008 R2, or Windows Server 2008 with Service Pack 2 and the Platform Update for Windows Server 2008. It works on Internet Explorer
6 or later, Chrome
2 or later, Firefox 2.0 or later, Opera 10 or later, and Safari
3.0 or later.
An older version of Family Safety is available for Windows XP
.
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions...
, is free parental monitoring and content-control software
Content-control software
Content-control software, also known as censorware or web filtering software, is a term for software designed and optimized for controlling what content is permitted to a reader, especially when it is used to restrict material delivered over the Web...
for Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...
under the Windows Live
Windows Live
Windows Live is the collective brand name for a set of services and software products from Microsoft, part of their software plus services platform. A majority of these services are Web applications, accessible from a browser, but there are also client-side binary applications that require...
brand.
Features
- Web Filtering - Family Safety has a Windows Filtering PlatformWindows Filtering PlatformWindows Filtering Platform is a set of system services and an application programming interface introduced with Windows Vista that allows applications to tie into the packet processing and filtering pipeline of the new network stack. It provides features such as integrated communication and it can...
driver to filter web browsing. This works on all browsers, filters in 18 different languages, and contains the following levels:- Allow List Only - Only allows websites that a parent has added to the Allow list.
- Child-Friendly Sites - Above plus allows a list of websites designed for children. Child-Friendly Websites has a listing of the more popular kid sites and allows you to search the entire list of kid sites.
- General Interest - Blocks social networking, web mail, web chat, and adults sites.
- Online Communications - Blocks adult sites.
- Warn on adult - Allows all websites but warns when the site contains suspected adult material. This setting was designed for older children who you trust to make good decisions when the web filter incorrectly categorizes a site.
- Activity Reporting - Parents can obtain a list of the websites visited. In addition, computer usages time, programs run, files downloaded, and games run will be reported via Windows Parental Controls.
- Lock SafeSearchSafesearchSafeSearch is a Google search feature that acts as an automated pornography filter. A 2003 report by Harvard Law School's Berkman Center for Internet & Society stated that SafeSearch excludes many innocuous websites from search-result listings, including ones created by the White House, IBM, the...
on for GoogleGoogleGoogle Inc. is an American multinational public corporation invested in Internet search, cloud computing, and advertising technologies. Google hosts and develops a number of Internet-based services and products, and generates profit primarily from advertising through its AdWords program...
, BingBingBing is a web search engine from Microsoft.Bing may also refer to:* An onomatopœia of a bell sound* Bing cherry, a variety of cherry* Bing , Chinese flatbread* Bing , a German company that manufactured toys and kitchen utensils...
, Yahoo!Yahoo!Yahoo! Inc. is an American multinational internet corporation headquartered in Sunnyvale, California, United States. The company is perhaps best known for its web portal, search engine , Yahoo! Directory, Yahoo! Mail, Yahoo! News, Yahoo! Groups, Yahoo! Answers, advertising, online mapping ,...
, and other popular search engines. - Control of Windows Parental Control settings to set time limits, game restrictions ala ESRB, PEGI, CERO, Computer Software Rating RegulationComputer Software Rating RegulationThe Computer Software Rating Regulation is a rating system used in the Republic of China for computer software, including computer/console/handheld games...
, Game Rating BoardGame Rating BoardThe Game Rating Board is the South Korean video game content rating board. A governmental organization, the GRB rates video and computer games to inform customers of the nature of game contents....
, and Unterhaltungssoftware SelbstkontrolleUnterhaltungssoftware SelbstkontrolleUnterhaltungssoftware Selbstkontrolle is the organization responsible for computer game ratings in Germany.- Ratings :...
. as well as general application restrictions. - Family Safety allows remote access to its features via the web interface. Windows Live Family Safety 2011 added support for using the web filtering/blocking controls without the child having a Windows Live IDWindows Live IDWindows Live ID is a single sign-on web service developed and provided by Microsoft that allows users to log in to many websites using one account...
. - Contact Management - Parents are able to create "allow" lists for Windows Live ContactsWindows Live ContactsWindows Live Contacts is part of Microsoft's Windows Live services. It integrates tightly with Windows Live Hotmail, Windows Live Messenger, Windows Live Mail and Windows Live Profile to provide users access to their contact's profiles and information...
services such as Windows Live MessengerWindows Live MessengerWindows Live Messenger is an instant messaging client created by Microsoft that is currently designed to work with Windows XP , Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows Mobile, Windows CE, Xbox 360, Blackberry OS, iOS, Java ME, S60 on Symbian OS 9.x and Zune HD...
and HotmailHotmailWindows Live Hotmail, formerly known as MSN Hotmail and commonly referred to simply as Hotmail, is a free web-based email service operated by Microsoft as part of its Windows Live group. It was founded by Sabeer Bhatia and Jack Smith and launched in July 1996 as "HoTMaiL". It was one of the first...
to help prevent their children from communicating with unknown contacts and instead only communicate with contacts that parents have approved. Alternatively, parents can just monitor who the child as on their allow list. This was added for Windows Live Messenger 8.5. - Windows Live Family Safety blocks InPrivate browsing in Internet Explorer 8Internet Explorer 8Windows Internet Explorer 8 is a web browser developed by Microsoft in the Internet Explorer browser series. The browser was released on March 19, 2009 for Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008, and Windows 7. Both 32-bit and 64-bit builds are available...
and 9Internet Explorer 9Windows Internet Explorer 9 is the current version of the Internet Explorer web browser from Microsoft. It was released to the public on March 14, 2011 at 21:00 PDT. Internet Explorer 9 supports several CSS 3 properties, embedded ICC v2 or v4 color profiles support via Windows Color System, and...
. - Image Filtering - Family Safety has a filter which looks for adult content in images. The filter is only run on websites which do not do an adequate job of filtering the images and only on computers with sufficient performance capabilities. When an image is blocked, Family Safety blurs it out.
History
A preview of Windows Live OneCare Family Safety was first offered to 3000 beta testers in March 2006. After over a year and a half of testing, the final version was released on November 6, 2007. On 15 December 2008, Microsoft released an updated version 2009 of the software, and rebranded it as Windows Live Family Safety, removing it from the discontinued Windows Live OneCareWindows Live OneCare
Windows Live OneCare was a computer security and performance enhancement service developed by Microsoft for Microsoft Windows. A core technology of OneCare was the multi-platform RAV , which Microsoft purchased from GeCAD Software Srl in 2003, but subsequently discontinued...
family of products. Web Filtering and Activity Reporting were previously features in Windows Vista Parental Controls. They were removed from the Windows 7 release when they were moved to Windows Live
Windows Live
Windows Live is the collective brand name for a set of services and software products from Microsoft, part of their software plus services platform. A majority of these services are Web applications, accessible from a browser, but there are also client-side binary applications that require...
. On September 30, 2010, Windows Live Family Safety 2011 (Wave 4) was released as part of Windows Live Essentials 2011
Windows Live Essentials
Windows Live Essentials is a suite of freeware applications by Microsoft that aims to offer integrated and bundled e-mail, instant messaging, photo-sharing, blog publishing, security services and other Windows Live entities...
.
System requirements
Windows VistaWindows Vista
Windows Vista is an operating system released in several variations developed by Microsoft for use on personal computers, including home and business desktops, laptops, tablet PCs, and media center PCs...
Service Pack 2 with the Platform Update for Windows Vista, Windows 7 (32-bit or 64-bit editions), Windows Server 2008 R2, or Windows Server 2008 with Service Pack 2 and the Platform Update for Windows Server 2008. It works on Internet Explorer
Internet Explorer
Windows Internet Explorer is a series of graphical web browsers developed by Microsoft and included as part of the Microsoft Windows line of operating systems, starting in 1995. It was first released as part of the add-on package Plus! for Windows 95 that year...
6 or later, Chrome
Google Chrome
Google Chrome is a web browser developed by Google that uses the WebKit layout engine. It was first released as a beta version for Microsoft Windows on September 2, 2008, and the public stable release was on December 11, 2008. The name is derived from the graphical user interface frame, or...
2 or later, Firefox 2.0 or later, Opera 10 or later, and Safari
Safari (web browser)
Safari is a web browser developed by Apple Inc. and included with the Mac OS X and iOS operating systems. First released as a public beta on January 7, 2003 on the company's Mac OS X operating system, it became Apple's default browser beginning with Mac OS X v10.3 "Panther". Safari is also the...
3.0 or later.
An older version of Family Safety is available for Windows XP
Windows XP
Windows XP is an operating system produced by Microsoft for use on personal computers, including home and business desktops, laptops and media centers. First released to computer manufacturers on August 24, 2001, it is the second most popular version of Windows, based on installed user base...
.
See also
- Windows LiveWindows LiveWindows Live is the collective brand name for a set of services and software products from Microsoft, part of their software plus services platform. A majority of these services are Web applications, accessible from a browser, but there are also client-side binary applications that require...
- Windows Live OneCareWindows Live OneCareWindows Live OneCare was a computer security and performance enhancement service developed by Microsoft for Microsoft Windows. A core technology of OneCare was the multi-platform RAV , which Microsoft purchased from GeCAD Software Srl in 2003, but subsequently discontinued...
- Microsoft Security Essentials
- List of content-control software