Currently we’re developing and testing the Avira products in version 9. Since the beta is already out, it’s time to take a look at some of the new features we were adding. The release of the new products should take place in March.

One of the features that users were asking for in our security suite were parental controls. We listened to those requests and our developers did a great job of adding them!

Fig. 1: The configuration screen for the parental controls in Avira Premium Security Suite 9.

The parental controls are meant for parents who want to restrict and/or control the internet usage of their children. Children shouldn’t need to look at pornographic web sites for example, and online gambling isn’t suitable for them either.

We implemented the web filter on protocol level as addition to the WebGuard so it works independant from the web browser in use – may it be the Internet Explorer, Opera, Firefox or Safari. The filtering is done based upon roles, where each account on the computer can get its own ruleset.

Say, you have two accounts, Administrator and Kids. Administrator can use the pre-defined profile for adults, and if someone logs into the machine as Kids, the rules (for example the pre-defined Child-profile) are active.

You can define your own profiles and choose from roundabout 15 categories like pornography, entertainment and so on and allow or forbid the users of such a profile to view web sites falling into these categories. Additionally the Administrator can add web sites to allow or forbid anyhow, even if the profile categories say otherwise (black- and whitelisting).

The administrator can (and should!) protect the configuration with a password, so that restricted accounts can’t modify the rules that are in place.

Dirk Knop
Technical Editor