Smartphones and tablets connected to the Internet have become a trivial part of our world. Everyone’s got one. Meanwhile, many children find out how to use mobile devices before they can actually speak. And all these technologies go along with kids’ lives, make them more curious, help to educate themselves, and very often expose them to danger.
Cyberbullies insult kids on social media; haunt and offend them on instant chats. This horrible issue is known to be a major suicide factor among teens. Online predators try to gain children’s confidence and make them swallow the hook. Sexting is becoming a normal way of communication while exchanging nude photos – the best way to show one’s feelings. Moreover, the Internet is full of explicit sexuality, violence, and hate. Our kids have unlimited access to all of this. At any time. With one single click. On their smartphone and tablets. And parents don’t know.
Android parental monitoring applications allow parents to bring the situation under control and protect their children. Pumpic is a good example of reliable protection in this case. Such software lets you follow kids’ activities on mobile devices as well as the Internet. Apply parental controls and see what your kids are texting, which websites they visit, and the people they talk to. Prevent kids from seeing undesired content inappropriate for them. Block apps and other activities to prevent them from wasting time. Monitor their current location, check the entire route history and set safe or restricted areas thanks to the geofencing feature.
Check out the list below, compare the functionality of described solutions and see for yourself why choosing Pumpic – the best Android parental control app – is the right thing to do if you aim to protect your little ones from digital perils comprehensively.
Reviews of Best Free Parental Controls for Android
Kids Place App Review
Kids Place is a parental control that allows you to create a childproof environment on Android smartphones and tablets. The app works as a separate user account, which lets parents specify particular apps and activities kids may use and lock the account with a password. It means that your children will not be able to access any other activities but those authorized by parents.
The app can prevent your kids from buying and downloading new applications, receiving incoming calls, and using wireless signals. Kids Place also has built-in options for online content filtering. With it, you can restrict access to inappropriate photos and video files. Importantly, there is a timer feature in the app that allows parents to control their children’s screen time.
Kids Place parental control is a free app. However, there are some additional premium features that become available only after an in-app purchase. With a pay version, you will be able to run Kids Place in a background mode, block uninstallation of the app, use an option to always start on reboot, and set a customized title for a home screen.
Users admit Kids Place is a useful tool for parenting. Though some of them complain of periodical glitches that lock the phone completely, do not allow them to exit the app, and cause failure to block some children’s activities. In some cases, it fails to prevent kids from closing Kids Place and passing over its restrictions.
Kids Place lacks some significant parental control features as well:
- The app doesn’t log phone calls but only blocks them as such. Thus, if you let your kids talk on the phone, you will not be able to find out who called them and whom they called.
- The same goes for text messages. The app doesn’t let parents view SMS and other texts for inappropriate words, cyberbullying, and sexting.
- If you let your children use the Internet, you will not be able to monitor and prevent them from danger. You can either block online access permanently or leave kids unattended.
Limitly Review
Some people don’t think that not letting your child play football with friends until homework is done is parental control. But it is. The same when you allow your son or daughter to play computer games only one or two hours a day. Generally, parental control refers to a set of measures parents use to take care of their kids and prevent them from possible risks they may face every now and then.
That’s exactly what Limitly is about. It is a screen time management app that allows one to control device or application usage easily. Basically, it prevents children from frittering away time with tablets and smartphones. With Limitly, parents are enabled to specify periods or the exact time when their kids can use handheld Android gadgets in general and peculiar applications in particular.
Limitly – Screen Time Parental Control App provides parents with the flexibility to manage their kids’ on-screen time thanks to a broad range of features:
- Set schedule for specific apps usage;
- Limit the entire target device usage;
- Categorize apps by type and control their group limits as one application;
- Automatically apply limits to the apps newly added to Categories;
- Get full reports on which apps and how often your kid uses them;
- Customize messages that your child would see before a limit takes action;
- Quarantine recently installed apps until an adult reviews them.
As today parental control is closely connected to the issue of mobile gadgets used by kids, Limitly can be of great help here. It’s especially helpful when parents need to keep their children focused – at school while doing homework, at bedtime, or during family events. Moreover, one shouldn’t forget that limiting screen time can have a positive effect on kids’ sleep and health.
Screen Time Labs Review
The Screen Time app is designed for managing children’s time spent on smartphones and tablets. It allows parents to set various restrictions on kids’ devices as well as monitor browsing history and application downloads.
With this parental control, you will be able to set daily time limits on each application separately and block specific apps at bedtime or while your kids are at school. Thus, you can restrict access to social media so as to prevent your children from using them during their classes.
A time-out feature lets parents block device activities with one single click on their own smartphones or tablets. The app also allows you to reward kids with bonus time on their mobile devices if they show good task performance or improve their behavior. In addition, the Screen Time app lets you review websites your kid’s visits, applications they download, as well as apps they use most of all.
The app is meant to be free of charge. However, if you look closer, you will see that everything is not as it seems. When you install Screen Time for the first time, you can use all the features available, which comprise its Premium subscription plan. But after 14 days, you will have only two of them left. The rest will become available for $39.99 per year. Thus, with a free version, the Screen Time parental control allows one to review web and search history and monitor one device remotely.
There are some reasonable disadvantages the app should improve to provide kids with reliable protection:
- Screen Time doesn’t support social media monitoring. You can only block social apps completely. It means you will not be able to protect your kids against cyberbullies and online predators at times when you allow them to use social networks.
- There is no opportunity to track cell phone activities. Thus, you will not know who calls your kids. Text messages are also not supported. The app will not let you prevent your children from sexting or at least find out about such a misgivings activity.
- Some users complain of high prices set by Screen Time Lab. Sure; there is a free version. However, it turns out to be useful after 14 days, which is a free trial of the Premium subscription.
Norton Family Parental Control Review
A parental control application by Norton protects your children from dangers they may come across on the Internet. This software will prevent your kids from accessing inappropriate web content as well as wasting time on their smartphones and tablets.
The Norton Family Parental Control app comprises some useful features to monitor and secure children’s mobile activities. With it, you can view websites they visit and block you find misgiving. In addition, the app will send you notifications if your kids decide to enter one of those websites you have blocked.
Among other childcare opportunities, the app allows tracking location on the map and following text conversations. The Norton parental control also has application management options. Thus, you can view downloaded apps, block time-wasting ones, and check the amount of time your children spend with their mobile gadgets in their hands.
A free version of the app means that you can use Norton’s Premier package for 30 days at no charge. However, as soon as this free trial period is over, you will need to make a purchase. Otherwise, your parental control abilities will be limited to website restrictions and alerts.
Users admit some bugs and glitches appearing in the app after a month of usage. The app starts crashing and fails to support set-up restrictions. Moreover, there are some other problems to be fixed:
- Norton’s web history control works with a limited number of browsers. Thus, it doesn’t support many of them children can download to overcome parents’ restrictions easily.
- The app can’t monitor children’s activities in the incognito mode of the browser. Kids can hide from their parents what they are surfing by using this private mode.
- Doesn’t allow monitoring social media and online chats. All you can do is block these apps. But if you let your kids use one of them, you will never know what they do there, and thus, have no opportunity to prevent online risks.
Parental Control Board Review
The Parental Control Board app is designed for child protection when it comes to cell phone use and online activities. It includes some useful features that will help you find out what your kids are doing on their smartphones and tablets, who calls and texts them, as well as where they are.
Among the features of the app, you will find location tracking and geo-fencing to prevent your children from visiting restricted areas and be notified as soon as they leave or enter set-up zones on the map. Parental Control Board will also let you view call logs and text messages. In addition, you can block callers by phone numbers and message senders by keywords.
An application control feature allows parents to block specific apps and see how much time children spend playing, texting, surfing, etc. Meanwhile, with the help of a safe browsing mode, you will be able to make sure your kids don’t look for inappropriate content on the web.
An option called Kiosk Mode allows creating a separate user screen for kids with a specified number of apps they can use and phone numbers they can call.
Users appreciate the app as a good one, though some of them complain of many bugs. Thus, location tracking may work inaccurately, some issues with uninstallation appear from time to time, and Kiosk Mode sometimes fails to work. According to users, Parental Control Board crashes very often, though the issue gets solved after another version update.
The app is meant to be free of charge, but in reality, it is only a free trial. A year’s license for the Android version of Parental Control Board costs $12.
The Parental Control Board app also has some other problems to be solved to improve reliability:
- Safe browsing is available only via a specific app called Fire Phoenix. It means that you will need to block all other browsers to prevent your kids from having inappropriate searches on the web. And keep blocking new ones they may download.
- Social media monitoring is not supported. Meanwhile, it remains the main source of cyberbullying, online predator attacks, sexting, and other threats kids face on the Internet.
- Location tracking has doubtful accuracy, which may cause confusion, when it comes to looking for your children on the map and in place.
Abeona Review
The software allows parents to monitor their kids on smartphones and tablets as well as block some mobile activities. It actually comes with two complementary applications: Abeona Parental Control installed on a parent’s device and Abeona Device Monitor installed on a child’s gadget.
The Abeona app provides parents with an opportunity to view call logs, track location, and set geofences, which notify you with an alert once their children leave or enter specified areas. The app will also show you applications being used currently, as well as the general time spent on each app. If you see that your kids spend too much time on any of the apps you consider inappropriate, you can block them easily, thanks to Abeona’s functionality.
When it comes to Internet use, the app allows parents to find out if their children are online or offline and follow websites they visit via Chrome.
The app seems to be useful and reliable. However, when I started using it, Abeona’s clients pointed to some reasonable glitches. Thus, in some cases, the app doesn’t follow commands. When you try to block an app, it may not work. Sometimes the app fails to open at all. Users also admit that children manage to pass over app blocking by repeatedly pressing on its icon.
In addition, there are some more substantial disadvantages that should be considered:
- Abeona doesn’t support old Android OS versions. The developers of the app admit it stating that old versions are not supposed to be supported at all due to technical reasons.
- Location tracking and geofences don’t work without an Internet connection. Thus, if your children have no Wi-Fi around, you will not be able to find out where they are.
- The app provides web history monitoring only via the Chrome browser. Meanwhile, your children are free to use other browsers, and you will not even know what they are surfing.
Pumpic Review
Pumpic is a multi-feature parental control application comprehensive enough to provide reliable protection for your children. The app covers all of your kids’ activities online and daily. It is a helping hand for careful parents for all of life’s emergencies.
Pumpic is a paid service and you won’t find it among Android monitoring software for free. However, it is one of the best parental controls available online. When you buy Pumpic, you contribute to child safety. And Pumpic is worth the cost. After all, there is always free cheese in a mousetrap.
Pumpic Provides Reliable Protection
Control cell phone use
- Monitor call logs, block callers
- View texting, block by keywords
- Lock or wipe the device remotely
Keep track of the location
- Follow real-time whereabouts
- Track entire route history
- Set geofences, receive alerts
Monitor Internet activities
- Check web history and bookmarks
- Follow social media and online chats
- Control browsing in the private mode
Over 24 Features for Child Safety
Each and every feature the Pumpic app includes allows you to monitor various spheres of your children’s lives. Altogether, they show you a wide picture of what is going on with your kids so that you can detect potential risks and avert them in the making.
Manage All Through Control Panel
Log in to your Control Panel, and you will see all the information monitored on your kids’ devices. The Control Panel can be accessed via any browser on a desktop computer, laptop, smartphone, or tablet. There, you can not only view the information but also set limits, restrict some activities, as well as lock or wipe the target device remotely. Check out our Demo to see how it all works.
