Internet blocking filters are getting better at blocking adult websites but could still use some improvement when it comes to blocking other sites they "should" block, according to a new report from Consumer Reports due to appear in the magazine's June issue.
The magazine's newest tests of Internet filters showed them still blocking too many sites about nonporn subjects like politics, sex education, civil rights, and health issues, hampering research by students or at research companies.
Consumer Reports said that most of the products they tested are easy to set up, with Safe Eyes 2005 the top-rated filter. This filter, the magazine said, offers the best combination of protection from "objectionable" sites with minimum interference with "legitimate" sites, "and is one of the few programs that interfered minimally with search engine results."
Among the sites Consumer Reports said "should" be blocked include those "promoting hatred, illegal drugs, or violence."
The magazine also said that MSN users, or those wanting protection built into their Internet service, get almost the same level of effective protection from Microsoft's Parental Controls Version 9.1, a free offering with MSN that lets parents set filtering according to multiple age levels. "But it lacks most features offered by other high-rated models," according to the Consumer Reports review.
AOL Parental Controls 9.0 also received high marks as the best freeware porn-blocking service and time management controls, for both Mac users and families with very young children, the magazine said.
Consumer Reports said it tested filtering products by way of building a list of "objectionable" websites anyone can find with little trouble as well as informational sites to test a filter's ability to separate the "objectionable" from the "merely sensitive." The magazine's testers configured the programs as if they were parents of children ages 12–15, and then tried accessing the sites the filters picked up.
