Best Parental-Control Apps For Smartphone 2018

It's not simply that digital dangers are everywhere in the mobile age. It's also that the internet never goes to sleep or stops demanding our attention. This is particularly challenging for kids armed with smartphones and disappearing-message apps, who may really believe that their next text, tweet or viral video cannot wait until tomorrow.

 

Parental-control apps for smartphones can also help kids understand the value of limits in a digital world while preventing them from accessing adult content or texting with strangers.

No one parental-control service is perfect, but our testing found that Norton Family Premier ($49.99 on Norton) delivered the best mix of web filtering, location tracking and app management, particularly on Android devices. (The iPhone version of Norton Family Premier was limited by comparison, but still offered just enough web filtering to make it worthwhile.)

Norton's parental-control app beat out PhoneSheriff ($89 a year), which is a good alternative on Android, particularly for monitoring texting. Parents with many kids to manage might appreciate the simple setup of ESET Parental Control for Android ($30 a year), which lets you control an unlimited number of devices.

Norton and ESET also make antivirus software, and many antivirus products have parental controls built in. To see how well those controls stack up against the stand-alone services, please read The Best (and Worst) Antivirus Software for Parents.

How We Tested and Rated

Evaluation Criteria

We focused our testing on apps that emphasize setting up filters and limits before your child uses the phone, instead of merely tracking activities after the fact. In evaluating these products, we took the following criteria into account:

·                     Installation: How easy is it to install and configure each app on a smartphone?

·                     App Management: Since most of the time spent on smartphones is within an app, not a browser, which program lets the parent review all the apps on a child's device and block or limit app usage?

·                     Filtering: Which tools does each app offer, and how well do those tools restrict kids' access to inappropriate content online?

·                     Texting Management: With kids doing most of their communicating through text messages, we looked at the features for monitoring messaging. Do the apps let you review the content of your child's texts? Can you block a contact and be alerted when your child adds a new contact? Can you block messaging apps altogether?

·                     Location tracking: Does the app keep a log of where your child has been and, more importantly, give you the ability to locate your child in an emergency?

·                     Price: How much does the service cost annually? How many devices can you monitor or control?

We also looked into whether these services let parents monitor kids' activities on social media, although in most cases, the features we found were pretty limited. You either need to "root" a device — which we do not recommend — or have your child hand over his or her username and password.

We tested each Android and iOS app twice, from installation to testing to uninstall. We monitored activity and managed settings on a MacBook Pro, and used both iOS and Android phones to send texts or call the Android device we were monitoring.

Both Norton Family Premier and Qustodio for Families Premium feature iOS versions, which we tested and rated separately from their Android counterparts. Apple imposes limits on what third-party apps are able to control, and while some of those restrictions have been eased in recent iOS updates, the Android platform still enables far more robust parental monitoring controls. 

None of the services tested for iPhone were able to effectively limit how much time a child could spend on their iPhone; we also couldn't monitor texts or block specific contacts. You can monitor more on the iPhone than you could a couple of years ago, but Android remains a better platform if you want more control over how your children are using their mobile devices. Parents of kids with iOS devices would be well-advised to familiarize themselves with the parental-control options available in iOS 10's Settings app.

What We Didn't Include

Parental-control apps for mobile devices work best when they're part of a comprehensive approach to teaching your kids about behaving responsibly online. That means talking to your kids about what they should and shouldn't do with their mobile devices, clearly communicating how you expect them to act and making clear that you will be monitoring what they do with their phones. 

For that reason, we avoided testing apps that run only in stealth mode on a child's phone. Products such as WebWatcher and mSpy both tout this capability, but we're aware that some people use such services to spy not on their children, but on their spouses or on other adults, which is illegal in most U.S. jurisdictions. 

Both PhoneSheriff and Mobile Spy allow the installer to turn off user notifications and remove the app icon from the list of installed apps, leaving the phone user generally unaware that he or she is being monitored. Neither app is offered in the official Google Play Store for Android apps, meaning that users will have to "sideload" them, a practice that we do not recommend for security reasons. 

Both PhoneSheriff and Mobile Spy have reportedly been used by jealous spouses or lovers to spy on adults, although we have not been able to confirm that. However, both apps will still show up in the apps list in system settings; adults worried that they are being spied upon should check that menu.

We also did not consider apps that offered the ability to record phone conversations, because state laws vary on the legality of recording someone without his or her consent.