Technologies play a significant role in a child’s growth, but simultaneously, they keep children isolated from the real world.
A parent has to create a secure environment for a child from the ever-growing technologies and harm from content on the internet.
What better way to protect your kids than using the best parental control apps for Windows 11?
Giving your child a phone is one thing, but handing over full access to the internet is quite another because there is a lot of content out there that you don’t want to come across.
As a parent, you would like to reduce and manage what they see and the time they spend online doing whatever makes them happy.
Parental control apps are like a gift from the heavens to parents; they give them control over their kids’ digital habits.
For Windows 11 users, Microsoft has added a tremendous parental control app by default.
But they are also third-party parental control apps that give you the same features as the default parental control app in Windows 11, and some others give you more for free, while others give you much more for a little token.
Here are the best parental control apps for windows 11 that you can come across;
Best Parental Control Apps for Windows 11
1. Microsoft Family Safety
First on our list of the best parental control apps for Windows 11 is Microsoft Family Safety. This app is from the stables of Microsoft, owner of the Windows operating system (also Windows 11).
The Microsoft Family Safety App is an out-of-the-box, free parental control and monitoring service that can protect your family and, most significantly, your kids from online threats. Parents use it to provide healthy digital habits for their kids.
You can set a limit for device usage using the Microsoft Family Safety Parental Control app. There’s nothing more fun for kids than giving them extra time with their devices.
This app can add more time to the elapsed device usage. You can also filter apps and the types of games that you find appropriate for the kids, thereby giving them healthy and stealthy browsing habits.
Features of Microsoft Family Safety
- It provides summaries of the device activity on the dashboard.
- You can add additional screen time to a device whenever they run out of time, which can be done using a screen time request.
- If the location permission is active, it can be used as a location tracker.
- It has a content filtering mechanism that allows you to filter content on the internet from the target device by blocking websites, banning keywords, and limiting access time on the internet.
- Provides safety reports to help to develop better driving habits among children
Pricing
Microsoft Family Safety Free: Free
Microsoft 365 Family: $9.99/month and $99.99/year
Cons of Microsoft Family Safety
- It doesn’t support any feature that monitors social media activities.
- The content filtering mechanism is restricted to some web browsers as it doesn’t work on Internet Explorer and the Microsoft Edge browser.
- A Microsoft account Is a must-have before you can use this app.
2. Kaspersky Safe Kids for Windows
Kaspersky Safe Kids is ranked second-best in our list of the best parental control apps for Windows 11.
With Kaspersky Safe Kids, you can monitor your kid’s online activities even when you’re not around; isn’t that cool?
Kaspersky Safe Kids has a feature that allows you to monitor your kids remotely from anywhere in the world. You can protect your kids both online and offline with this unique parental control app.
Unlike Microsoft Family Safety, Kaspersky Safe Kids can be used by anyone for personal and professional use. ‘I know what you’re thinking.
A parental control app like Kaspersky Safe Kids doesn’t just monitor your kids’ activities. Still, it also monitors the device battery using its innovative battery tracker, which will notify the admin on the app.
And as usual, it allows you to monitor and manage the kid’s device usage by setting a time limit.
Take Note:
- First, install it on your Windows 11 PC
- Create an account, then select Parent Mode.
- After installing it on your PC, you can now go ahead and install Kaspersky Safe Kids on your kids’ devices, and on the devices, choose ‘Child’ mode.
Features of Kaspersky Safe Kids
- You can stop a device usage after a specific time using the screen-time controls feature during study time
- It blocks inappropriate content that your kids come across, such as web searches and YouTube videos
- It sends you an alert whenever your kids visit any inappropriate sites or apps
- With the GPS location tracker feature, you can see the places your kids visit in real-time
- You can customize the list of websites you want your kid to visit
Pricing
Kaspersky Safe Kids: Free
Kaspersky Safe Kids Premium: $14.99/month
Cons of Kaspersky Safe Kids
- It has a social media monitoring feature, unlike Microsoft Family Safety, but this feature is limited to Facebook only
- It doesn’t notify you when your kid tries to remove the app from their device
3. OpenDNS Family Shield
OpenDNS Family Shield is a Windows 11 Parental Control App that works directly on a router. This parental control app aims to eliminate all inappropriate domains and restrict access to inappropriate content.
You can use this app on a new router, but it is tricky because it works mainly on the router rather than the device itself.
The good side is that you can increase the internet speed directly from the device. Be aware that OpenDNS for a router isn’t client software but network software.
One of the things you will love about the OpenDNS Family Shield App is that you can monitor not just a single device connected to the network, but all devices.
It has a feature that detects phishing activity and monitors activities on the domain, thereby protecting connected devices from online threats.
It’s not simple to make the list of the best parental control apps for Windows 11. Compared to other Windows 11 Parental Control apps, it lacks some features that parents would want in a parental control app.
It can be challenging for non-tech-savvy parents to understand how some features work.
Features of OpenDNS Family Shield
- It ensures a reliable and faster internet
- It gives you the statistics on internet usage from the previous year
- It comes with a free email support service
- It has a customized content filtering feature that lets you customize content for your kids
- Maintains block list and allow list of domains you want to block and allow
Pricing
OpenDNS Family Shield has four different plans, as seen below;
- OpenDNS Family Shield: Free
- OpenDNS Home: Free
- OpenDNS VIP Homes: $19.95/year
- OpenDNS Prosumer: $20/user, and it is suitable for 1-5 users
Cons of OpenDNS Family Shield
- It lacks some features that parents would want in the Parental Control app.
- It can be challenging for non-tech-savvy parents to understand how some features work.
4. KidLogger
Instead of blocking your kids from visiting every website on the internet, you can track the activities of their devices. This is where KidLogger comes into play.
You can choose the things you want to monitor, lists of phrases or words, and the KidLogger will notify you whenever your kid comes across such phrases or words on their device; it goes the extra mile to show what the things your kids are typing on their devices.
As one of the best parental control apps for Windows 11, KidLogger takes the users’ photos from the device camera just as soon as they start using the target PC.
It also records the user’s online activities, not leaving offline activities behind, such as a USB connection on the device, opening folders, etc.
Aside from offline activities, some of the online activities that these parental control apps monitors are voice chats, video chats, etc.
Furthermore, with one KidLogger installed, you can only track one device simultaneously.
Features of KidLogger
- Unlike other Parental Control apps mentioned in this article, KidLogger captures screenshots of apps that are being used on the kids’ devices
- It comes with a password protection feature that helps to protect passwords stored on the target PC
- It keeps a detailed record of the folder that is accessible to your kids
- It takes random screenshots whenever specific keywords are triggered
- Its video recording is only limited to Skype video chats
Pricing of KidLogger
KidLogger: Basic plan is free
Standard plan: $9/quarter
Professional plan: $20/quarter
Cons of KidLogger
- It automatically deletes app history within ten days
5. Spyrix
Unlike all the other best parental control apps for Windows 11 mentioned in this article that mostly come with a price attached, Spyrix is a free version and easy to use.
Spyrix’s main features are keystroke logging, screenshot capturing, remote uninstallation, and clipboard monitoring.
This Parent Control app for Windows 11 is mainly used if you intend to spy on your kids’ activities remotely.
Features of Spyrix
- Keystrokes logging
- Capturing screenshots
- Remote app uninstallation
- Clipboard monitoring
Pricing: FREE
6. Zoodles
“Designed by parents, made for kids” is the tagline for Zoodles, as this parental control app aims at younger kids who do not intend to come across objectionable content but, in the process, get exposed to it.
Zoodles creates a kid mode in the system, which allows the kids to be accessible to selected games, videos, and books while other content remains locked in the system.
It sends reports of the child’s activities on the system to the parent.
Price: Free
Conclusion
Parents need to find a means to shield their children from the online world’s nightmare since they are frequently concerned about the increased risks that their children may experience there.
Digital devices are crucial for children’s development in education and the majority of leisure activities, but if misused, they can put kids in danger.
By utilizing some of the best parental control apps for Windows 11, they can manage the content that their children can view, and parents are preventing harm and danger to their children.
While it’s common practice at the moment, not all parental control apps are compatible with all devices.
All the best parental control apps for Windows 11 mentioned in this article are compatible with Windows 11; I hope you find them helpful as you try to protect your children from the harm of the online world.
