ContentBarrier X9 for Mac
Smart and intuitive parental controls (was Family Protector).
$19.99
In English
Version 10.9.22When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission
ContentBarrier X9 overview
ContentBarrier X9 (was Family Protector) knows that the Internet is a double-edged sword: it's a great resource for kids, but strangers and inappropriate websites lurk just a click away. Intego ContentBarrier acts as your children's digital guardian whenever they go online. It allows you to set up customized profiles that monitor Internet habits and restrict adult content. Your kids are given a world that's age-appropriate and you're given peace of mind.
- Blocks objectionable web content, including categories of content, specific web sites, sites with specific keywords, and access to sites requiring https
- Whitelist functionality allows users to access only sites you permit
- Access restrictions custom tailored per user (e.g., one account for yourself and a more restricted account for your child)
- Browser-embedded UI allows for overriding parental controls and allowing sites so long as the user has the necessary security credentials
- History of websites visited for each user account and the ability to easily block/allow a site from the history list
- Time of day restrictions on network access (restrict access to specific times of day/week, a maximum amount of time per day, or temporarily block a user for a set period of time or until you unblock them manually)
- Anti-Predator chat monitoring for all standard chat protocols to watch for objectionable chat content and block inappropriate chats (receive email alerts whenever objectionable content is detected)
- View history of recorded chats, including the content of the chat and the ID of the chat partner
- Takes screenshots and includes a Time Machine-like control that lets you easily view recorded screens
- Records keystrokes
- Restricts application network access only to applications you allow
- Blocks inappropriate emails
- Blocks connections to game servers or streaming music and video
- Blocks peer-to-peer activity (e.g., BitTorrent)
- Contains a "monitor only" mode that records a user's activity but does not provide any protections/perform any blocking
- Periodically updates filters to provide ongoing protection against objectionable content
- Web Administration Console allows anytime/anywhere access to ContentBarrier (view web activity and block/allow access to specific sites, allow exceptions to permitted network access times, and view blocked network applications and allow exceptions)
- Email activity reports (e.g., websites that were blocked, blocked chats via AntiPredator or keyword triggering, attempts to access encrypted sites)
What’s new in version 10.9.22
- Sonoma compatibility
ContentBarrier X9 for Mac
$19.99
In English
Version 10.9.22
Write a detailed review about ContentBarrier X9
(20 Reviews of ContentBarrier X9)
Comments
User Ratings
Mar 17 2013
Version: 10.7
Piece of crab. Slow mac down terribly and configuation is a disaster: many times I had to force quit.
Stay away if you can.
I was using the previous version Contentbarrier. That one was ok. This one is as I said
Jan 30 2011
Version: 10.5.5
It appears that the methodology for determining website categories is such that many, many sites are blocked which do not meet the category. For instance, a site gets blocked and categorized as "racism", apparently based on the fact that the subject is or has been discussed there. Not because it's genuinely a racist site, like stormfront or something.
I've been using K9, and it does reliably block sites you want it to, but it certainly doesn't block normal mainstream sites because they use the word "racism", or "guns", or "sex", or whatever.
If Contentbarrier could employ the same kind of filtering methodology that K9 does, it would be great. It has many useful features (the free) K9 doesn’t have, one of which is the ability to apply different or no filters to different accounts on the Mac. With K9, it's all accounts or none.
Unless of course I'm missing some preference or something, which is entirely possible. I'm assuming that one method is based on a computer scanning a site for words or references, and the other is based more on human inspection and determination, and a database built on that.
As it stands, I can't justify spending 50 bucks on CB, when K9 is free. But it is nice other than having to spend a lot of time typing your password and exempting lots and lots of sites all the time.
Jul 28 2010
Version: 10.5.5
I've been using it for years and it works OK. But I don't think Intego puts the time (sales?) into it to make it a really great parental product. They have a quirk about it recording passwords (it won't) and it misses a lot of porn sites. Their excuses are there are too many new pornsites and that allowing password recording would make it spyware ! A good product until the kids reach 12 or 13,then they will be savvy enough to surf around it. The best (and really only safe) option is too set it up to allow only certain websites. Also with the words kids use chatting, the filters will interpret it as predatory language,thus if allowing chat they can swear and talk or setting predatory will exclude the other teen chatting. Still very useful and worth the money. Now if Intego would just add it as a mini iphone app.
Feb 27 2010
Version: 10.5.5
ContentBarrier is okay, but I wish there was a better alternative. It does block sites well, and I would give it 5 stars on that point. Although sometimes it blocks things it shouldn't, that is easily corrected, and it doesn't happen frequently. The main problem I've had with it is that the websurfing activity log fills up quickly (within a week), and then it stops updating to the Intego site, where I like to manage it. To their credit, support tried to help me work through the issue, but in the end they told me I had to erase the logs on the computer that was being monitored, and restart the computer. I have to do this about once a week in order to continue using the web management.
