Viewing my internet history

boblighte

I have a thirteen year old son. Now, I'd like to let him frolic about the internet at his leisure; I don't want to have to be in the room every time he wants to check his MySpace. However, as a hormonal teenage boy, his browser is likely to end up in places it shouldn't, and, unfortunately, he is smart enough to delete individual pages in the browsing history.

So, does anyone know if there is a program, or perhaps an add-on (I use Firefox) that will allow me to view his history even if he deletes it out of the history sidebar?

y2jake215

that seems to me like a real invasion of privacy..especially if you don't tell him about it. if you want to go that approach, find a filter that won't allow him to go to the sites, but won't record where he's trying to go. if you're intent on going this route though, you should at least tell your son you'll be able to see his history, rather than causing him a very embarrassing situation by calling him on the sites he visits. i don't know any specific addons though, sorry.

mastman

He's trying to raise his son, a 13 year old, correctly and protect him from stuff until he(father) is ready to educate him. Shutup about invasion of privacy.

Sorry I do not know of any addons either. But I would recommend you install some filters so he can't even get to most of the bad ones. I do imagine though there are browsers with security settings that yuo can password protect so he can only use it and not clear anything out.

boblighte

My intention isn't to snoop: I want to keep him from looking at pornography, not embarrass him. I have every intention of letting him know my plans. My idea is that if he knows he can't do it without me finding out, he won't do it. I caught him before he learned to delete his history, and we had a talk, but I still have suspicions.

y2jake215

that's all i meant, mastman, relax.
if he's telling his son hes doing it, i don't have any problem with it at all. it's only if was planning to basically spy on him without his knowledge, which i find if anything would demolish trust with a parent instead of strengthen.

VThornheart

Is it the family computer?

If it is, would it be reasonable to put it in a public place, like the living room?

saggio

What OS are you running? Mac OS X? Windows? Some variant of Linux?

boblighte

I'm using Windoxs XP. We keep the computer in an office downstairs, there isn't really room in our living room.

JihadJesus

You're trying to keep a 13 year old boy from looking at porn? Shit, that was impossible BEFORE the internet when kids had to trade around a dusty old Playboy one kid found under his dad's bed. Bottom line, if he wants to see 'em the kid's gonna find himself some titties to look at. That's just the stage of development he's at. Once he gets to the point he's searching out porn, he's curious enough to be trying shit - there's no "I'll talk to him later, for now I just don't want him looking at porn". It's TIME for that education, and blocking out the porno (which you will never be able to do completely anyway) is a pretty piss poor substitute.

I'm not saying you should buy him a Playboy and sign him up for some online porn sites, but sticking your head in the sand because you don't WANT him to be at a point where he's searching out boobies isn't really helping much because he already IS. It's advisable (and good parenting) to do what you can to keep him away from hardcore porn and be aware of what he's doing, but don't freak too much about a teenage guy hunting for some porn.

starmanbrand

A keylogger could be used for this function.

embrik

WikiHow for IE History restoring.

Firefox is harder though, maybe a plugin/extension exists, but I didn't see anything obvious.

deadonthestreet

I'm pretty sure Google can do this for you. It's called Google Web History.

RocketSauce

If you're on a Mac, why not just set up a Guest account so he can only have access to certain web pages. You could even do that on XP.

embrik

RocketSauce wrote: »

If you're on a Mac, why not just set up a Guest account so he can only have access to certain web pages. You could even do that on XP.

If you want to be super restrictive (and nicely protect your PC), you could install Microsoft's Windows SteadyState. It's one awesome piece of software, and it's free to anyone with Windows XP.

Æthelred

deadonthestreet wrote: »

I'm pretty sure Google can do this for you. It's called Google Web History.

Alternatively, do you have Google Desktop installed? It's very good for finding things on your computer anyway, but it also keeps a record of what websites you visit. You can browse the web history via a timeline, so if you know when your son is online, it'd be a cinch to check where he's been visiting.

Also, make sure to hide your own porn carefully. :P

Thanatos

I believe there's a way to set it so your router keeps logs of the sites your son visits.

It's nice to give the kid his privacy for his MySpace and Facebook or whatever, but you'd know if he were visiting porn or proxies.

falsedef

JihadJesus wrote: »

You're trying to keep a 13 year old boy from looking at porn? Shit, that was impossible BEFORE the internet when kids had to trade around a dusty old Playboy one kid found under his dad's bed.

When I was 13, my dad gave me a college textbook about sex, pictures included. I now know how to perform mammograms :winky:

Black Ice

Like you said, he's a hormonal 13 year old boy.

If he can't get his hormones "relieved" at home, he may feel more inclined to try things with girls when he's out, so be mindful of the consequences..

Have you tried looking at his cookies instead of the history? He'll eventually get too lazy to delete them individually, and it's going to look downright suspect if all of his cookies disappear frequently.

The ones you're looking for aren't hard to find if you use the search function.

brandotheninjamaster

Why not move the primary computer in use to the a place where the family often congregates? Seems like a simple enough solution to me. That way you can be watching the TV or whatever while he does his social networking stuff.

Ziac45

You really should have suspicions odds are he is still looking at porn but is more careful about it. The family thing wont work, if he has anytime home alone at all you can bet he will be going to town on it. I would probably stick with blocking the worst things and let him have some type, even if its just girls without their shirts on it will satisfy him without him stumbling onto tub girl or Goatse and other worse porn.

romanqwerty

I second just talking to your sun about it. Sure there will be ways to monitor what he is browsing but most teenage boys have a way of getting around most of these measures. Basically, you wont be able to stay ahead of him for long and i reckon u'd be better off just having that talk sooner rather then later.

kevbot

Here at work I've set up a pfSense firewall/router along with the ntop package to track Internet usage. Since it's a separate appliance it's a lot harder for him to alter the logs, and you can go a lot more in depth with what you track. There are packages to record all msn conversations, for example. As long as you let him know and aren't being totally invasive I don't see any problem with doing this sort of thing... it's sort of expected that parents do this nowadays.

Black Ice

brandotheninjamaster wrote: »

Why not move the primary computer in use to the a place where the family often congregates? Seems like a simple enough solution to me. That way you can be watching the TV or whatever while he does his social networking stuff.

My parents never let me have a computer in my room for this reason.

Of course, kids these days can put porn on iPods, PSP, and I'd imagine a DS, but I've never operated a DS and no one has ever shown me porn on a DS.

spacerobot

Black Ice wrote: »

brandotheninjamaster wrote: »

Why not move the primary computer in use to the a place where the family often congregates? Seems like a simple enough solution to me. That way you can be watching the TV or whatever while he does his social networking stuff.

My parents never let me have a computer in my room for this reason.

Of course, kids these days can put porn on iPods, PSP, and I'd imagine a DS, but I've never operated a DS and no one has ever shown me porn on a DS.

Not only that, but they can use their electronic gadgets to pull pornographic images out of thin air.

I would reccomend setting the computer up in a family area. I also know that there are accountability programs out there that will send a list of visited websites to someone to help people keep accountable about their viewing habits. I believe the programs are typically oriented towards people who are addicted to porn... but they might be able to help you in your situation. I found one here: http://www.covenanteyes.com