This is an interesting development for families with elementary-school-age kids: Kidzui built right into the Firefox browser – built-in parental control in a new form. “Once installed and activated by a parent, [the Kidzui browser extension] locks the child (or anyone else for that matter) out of accessing non-Kidzui approved sites, or other areas of the computer, by taking up the entire screen,” CNET’s Webware blog reports. That last phrase means kids can’t even get to other applications on the computer like Word or instant messaging without inputting “a password, which is chosen by the parent” – the only way out of KidZui. It’s up to parents, of course, to decide if older kids can have the password. The add-on is free, like the basic version of Kidzui too, but also supports the $40/year edition with extras such as kid social-networking features (e.g., having a profile and “Zui” avatar) and extra parental-control tools. For more on Kidzui, see my October post on new sites and services for young people.
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