Qustodio Review: Best & Trusted Parental Control App
If your kids have their own mobile devices, you may want a way to track and control what they’re doing. The best parental control apps offer ways to limit time spent on the device, track usage and location, and block apps or games. Before we delve into the options, it’s worth noting that there are some free parental controls built in to most devices nowadays, so you may not need to spring for a third-party app at all.
Parental-control apps for smartphones can help parents track their kids, see with whom the children are communicating, block kids from reaching objectionable or dangerous websites, and even help kids understand the value of limits in a digital world while preventing them from accessing adult content or texting with strangers.
About Qustodio:
Qustodio is user-friendly, efficient, and excellent for parents who are short on time. It offers a dashboard that shows you all recent mobile activity for any connected device, including time spent on specific services like Instagram or Twitter. From there you can set time limits, track texts, filter out racy sites, and block any game or app. A high level of customizability makes it a great parental control app to use when managing devices for kids of multiple ages, and it also works on Kindle or Nook devices, which is rare.
Why Qustodio:
The ability to manage devices on multiple platforms and detailed app management features make Qustodio a worthwhile parental control option in households with many devices. The main aim of Qustodio is that it is designed to solve parents’ concerns. In this way Qustodio gives parents visibility, and creates daily opportunities to talk with kids about their online experiences.
Build a safe and productive digital environment with Qustodio
Qustodio provides powerful monitoring tools and parental controls for things like screen time, adult content and games.
Keep them Safe- Smart filters help kids out of inappropriate content on the internet.
Keep them Focused: Easily set a screen time schedule or a daily time limit for games and apps.
Web Content Filtering
Filtering unwanted content is a staple of parental control. You don’t want your kids accidentally (or deliberately) visiting nasty sites, right? Qustodio tracks more than 70 categories, arranged in 13 meta-categories such as Adult, Vice, and Shopping. These in turn fall under Mature and General. That’s more categories than any content filter I’ve reviewed ever.
The youngest profile is banned from every category except Games and Young Child. For a teen, all the General categories are allowed and all the Mature ones blocked.
Premimium Features:
Block pornography: Qustodio’s real-time internet filter blocks inappropriate content even in private browsing mode.
View Social Network Activity: Monitor time spent on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Whatsapp and more.
Balance Screen Time: Easily set a time schedule or limits for how much internet time is allowed each day.
Control Games & Apps: Set time limits for games & apps or block apps you don’t want from running altogether.
Track Calls & SMS*: See who your child calls or texts most, read text messages, and set a list of blocked contacts.
Location tracking and Panic Button*: Track your child’s location. In an emergency your child can use the Panic Button to call for help.
How to start:
It takes just 5 minutes to get started. Qustodio is a quick install on your own smartphone and your child’s devices.
STEP 1: Sign up
Create your Qustodio FREE Account
STEP 2: Install
Install Qustodio on any of your child’s devices
STEP 3: Protect
Manage all devices from the web-based Family Portal
In shorts, First choose the plan which is right for you and create your Qustodio account. After, Qustodio will guide you through an easy configuration process to make sure that all your family devices are protected. Need a download – check out the downloads section of our website.
Platforms supports:
Qustodio works on desktops, laptops, tablets and smartphones
-Qustodio for Android
Qustodio works on all Android smartphones and tablets running Android 4.0 and up. Unique to Android are features like location tracking, a panic button for kids and Calls & SMS monitoring.
-Qustodio for iOS
Qustodio supports iPhones, iPads and iPods running iOS 7 and up. On iOS our MDM technology can monitor internet use, control 50 apps, and disable internet when time is up.
-Qustodio for Windows
Qustodio supports all Windows laptops and desktops running Windows XP with Service Pack 3 and superior.
-Qustodio for Mac
Qustodio supports all Mac laptops and desktops running OS X 10.9 and up.
-Qustodio for Kindle
Qustodio supports all Android (and Amazon Kindle) devices running Android 4.0 and up.
Above platform supports given below features:
- Smart Web Filters
- Multi-device
- Advanced Facebook Monitoring
- Games & Apps Blocking
- Time Controls by Device
- Extended Reporting
- Priority Support
Payment options
They offer a wide variety of payment options depending on your location including
- Visa
- Mastercard
- American Express
- PayPal
- Wire Transfer
Money back Guarantee:
The great thing which makes Qustodio unique from other parental control softwares available in the market is their money back guarantee. They do have 30-day money back guarantee in case you’re not satisfied with the product.
Our Recommendation:
If you would like to take my recommendation then you should go with Qustodio. But the biggest question is that.
What’s the right plan for me?
Nowadays a typical family of four owns upwards of 10 devices. This includes smartphones, tablets, laptops and desktops. For a family of four we recommend Qustodio Premium 10 as it can protect up to 10 devices.
For larger families, Qustodio Premium 15 may be a good fit as it can protect up to 15 devices.
Finally, for small families whose kids use less than 5 devices, we recommend Qustodio Premium 5.
Scorecard
For any our reader who skipped straight to the bottom of this review to get a TL;DR, then look no further. You can also take this section as a quick summary of this Qustodio service’s quality across its most important components.
Without taking your further time, here is the scores that Qustodio earned:
Features: ★★★★★ (5/5 stars)
Safety / Security: ★★★★★ (5/5 stars)
Ease of Use: ★★★★★ (5/5 stars)
Price: ★★★★★ (5/5 stars)
Support: ★★★★★ (5/5 stars)
Growth: ★★★★★ (5/5 stars)
Final Score: ★★★★★ (5/5 stars)