Parental control is brand-new in this version of the suite, and its newness shows. On the plus side, it does offer multiple configuration profiles you can associate with specific Windows user accounts. By default, all users fall under the Child profile except those explicitly assigned to the Parent (no filtering) profile. You can also enable a Teenager profile and manually configure it for less-stringent filtering. The help system explains in detail how to create a custom profile—but this feature is not actually present in the program.
KIS7 filters Internet access at the network level, so it's browser-independent. A child won't have access to sites categorized as Porn, Drugs, Violence, Explicit language, Weapons, or Gambling. You can optionally limit access to chat sites and Web-based e-mail as well. The filter relies both on a database of known URLs and on real-time examination of Web page content. Blocked pages are replaced by a stark message stating "The requested URL . . . is forbidden." Additionally, each attempt is logged, along with all URLs that are not blocked.
Like most parental-control systems, KIS7 lets you set limits on children's Internet use. You can specify a daily maximum, and you can also define a schedule of times during which the Internet is available. Whereas most products offer a handy visual grid to schedule Internet access on a weekly basis, KIS7 makes you enter each time interval manually and uses the same schedule for every day of the week. If the time limit expires or the scheduled "on" time ends, there's no warning. Internet access just cuts off, and any further connection attempts get the exact same warning that's displayed when the child tries to access a forbidden site. That's confusing; overall, the Parental Control UI needs a lot more work, in my opinion.
Concerned about privacy? Here's a worry. When Parental Control is turned on, every URL visited by every user, regardless of that user's profile, is logged. You can't suppress logging for specific users or profiles, and you can't delete individual log items without clearing the entire log. If you value your online privacy, you'll want to clear it frequently or leave the Parental Control option turned off.
KIS7 spam filtering and parental control are no great shakes. On the other hand, the suite has real power in the areas most essential for security—firewall, antivirus, and antispyware. But you won't get full protection using the default settings; you absolutely must raise the protection level in a dozen-odd areas. So although KIS7 is a capable suite, it's not yet a particularly convenient one.
I don't mind tweaking the settings; I get paid to dig into the guts of apps like this. But people who pay for security suites may be less willing to roll up their sleeves to configure it. Still, it's a decent suite, and it wouldn't take much for Kaspersky to fix the configuration problem. I'll be interested to see how the next version stacks up if Kaspersky takes my recommendations to heart—and once it's had more time to tweak the brand-new parental-control module.
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