To help parents address their online safety concerns, IE developed the Content Advisor. The IE content advisor allows you to control which sites your children and other computer users can visit so you can keep unwanted websites far away from your computer.
With the IE content advisor, you can block a number of things like nudity, language, violence, and sex. Once IE content advisor has been enabled on your system, any sites that contain inappropriate information will be blocked from your website. This is a great tool for parents that are concerned about the safety of their children and they want to protect them. However, the downside is that it can go a little too far and block you out of your regular sites like social media sites. So you need to make sure you talk to the other adult internet users in the home before you set it or show them how to turn it off so they can get to the websites they normally view.
In order to turn on the IE content advisor, you need to open up your IE page and click on the Internet Options tab located under the “tools” drop down menu. Once you are in the Internet Options box, search for the Content tab. Click on this tab and you will see a small box appear that reads “Content Advisor”. All you need to do is click on “Enable” in order to set your preferences and block out the vulgar websites from your system.
From here you will go through a long list of things that you need to set to keep your kids safe. You can pick from the list of “nudity, content that creates fear, etc.” With each one you will select it and then you can click on a bar to move to the following 4 preferences:
1. None
2. Limited
3. Some
4. Unrestricted
With each tab you can read a small description at the bottom to see just how much nudity or violence your children will be exposed to when you select something different from “none”.
Once you set your new IE privacy settings, you will need to develop a password along with a hint for the password. This will prevent others from removing the Content advisor and accessing sites that you are not tolerant of. Pick a good password that your kids and other people will not be able to guess. The password hint can also give it away to them so it may be a good idea to write up a random hint question and just memorize your IE content advisor password or write it down in a place where no one will find it.
After typing in your password and clicking on “enable” your new changes will go into effect immediately. You will get a confirmation message that tells you about your new changes and what you need to do to change them if you need more security on some of your websites or the content your children have been viewing online.
The IE Content Advisor is easy to use and it’s one of the best ways to keep vulgarity out of your home. In addition to using the IE Content Advisor, you should also increase your online security. Always make sure you have your pop-up blocker turned on in order to keep harmful threats away from your system. You should also move your security level to medium high or high if you would like to keep certain websites off your computer. Of course this can make it a little difficult for some of your other sites that need to install cookies on your computer in order to run properly.