Easy ways to make web surfing safer for your kids. As your kids get older, there's more concern they might navigate to a website that's inappropriate for them. No solution is 100% foolproof, but here are a few ways to lockdown the devices they use to restrict their surfing to age-appropriate sites. Follow KTLA Tech Reporter Rich DeMuro on Facebook or Twitter for cool apps, tech tricks & tips! Go into Settings > General and look for the option called Restrictions. In here you'll find all types of things you can control. With just a few taps you can turn off entire features like the camera, Siri or even Safari. There are also toggles to prohibit installing new apps or making in-app purchases. You can also restrict content to certain ratings, just keep in mind these settings pertain to Apple content and not the stuff your kids are streaming inside Netflix or Amazon Prime. Speaking of Netflix, there are parental controls built into that service as well. Just sign into your master account and then go into Your Account and look for Manage Profiles.

Here you'll get the option to restrict content based on four options including Little Kids, Older Kids, Teens and Adults. The changes you make here will be reflected across all of your Netflix devices. Android is a bit more complicated when it comes to parental controls since there are so many different version of the operating system. There are big differences depending on the maker of your device. But in general, a good place to start is to look in your settings and see if you can add a second user. Then, you can go into the Google Play store and under settings you'll find lots of options for restricting content by ratings. If you have a Samsung phone they have a fantastic app you can download called Kids Mode. Once you activate Kids Mode you have control over everything your child can do on the device. You can allow access to certain apps, contacts, videos and even the camera. Finally, if you don't want to deal with the settings on individual devices you can try a solution like Circle with Disney.

This is a little $100 box you plug into your network at home and it filters the internet on every device that connects to your WiFi. In my testing, setup is very simple - it's nearly plug and play. There are no complicated procedures to get it to work. Basically, all you have to do is select your child's device from a list of devices on your network and you have options to restrict their web surfing and video viewing to age appropriate content. I found that the most complicated part is if you have a lot of smart home devices connected to your network (like I do) you will have to make sure that Circle doesn't interfere with these. You'll just have to exclude them from any filtering. Every time a new device joins your network you'll get a notification from Circle along with an option to add it to a predefined list like "kids" or "adults" and the device will auto-filter the connection there too. Circle will even generate a list of your child's most-used apps, show you a list of sites they visit and you can set a daily limit on the amount of time they can view videos on sites like Netflix, Amazon and YouTube.

Circle even has a "pause" button which can "turn off" the internet on devices, although this only worked intermittently in my testing. Bottom line - when it comes to monitoring your kids online time, no setting or device is 100% foolproof. But knowing about these useful settings can be a major help. Did this article help you out? Consider sharing it with your friends on Facebook!When the Amazon Kindle Fire HD Kids Edition Tablet was announced, I was intrigued by the “Everything Kids love. Fairy Lights For TentsEverything Parents Want.” tagline, and I immediately preordered. Extra Wide Curtains Ready Made UkThese 6″ and 7″ HD Fire tablets come with a 2-Year Guarantee, a kid-proof protective case, and the setup seemed perfect for a child’s first tablet.  Patio Furniture Association

After fiddling with one, I’m not convinced. I should start with the tablet’s strengths before I get into its weaknesses. Mike reviewed the Amazon Kindle Fire HD some time ago, and in the past I have recommended the tablet to several people who were looking for a good tablet for their children. When Amazon came out with this new version aimed solely for kids ages 3 and up, I felt like it was a no-brainer. Let me start with a quick gallery of what comes in the appealingly designed (for adults, anyway) box and then the hardware. Without the case, the Fire HD measures approximately 7.3″ long x 5″ wide x 0.5″ thick (it’s beveled shape makes it seem thinner), and it weighs one pound 2 ounces. The case is composed of matte black plastic with a front covered in Gorilla Glass. The Fire HD feels solid; it doesn’t flex or creak, and it the back is not user-removable. The size of the 7″ Kindle Fire HD Kids Edition is just about perfect; it’s big enough for kids to see and play, but it is small enough for them to tote around with them.

The Fire HD’s high-definition touchscreen screen has 1280×800 resolution (216 ppi), and it has video playback up to 720p. You can see the VGA front-facing camera in the glass, and the power button, microUSB port, microphone, and the 3.5mm headphone jack along the top edge. The right side of the device has no buttons. The bottom of the Kindle Fire HD Kids Edition is also plain. A volume rocker is on the left side. On the back, you can see the 2.0 megapixel rear-facing camera and the dual speakers. When you put the padded rubbery foam case on the tablet, it transforms the Kindle HD into a nearly kid-proof device — at least as far as drops are concerned. Of course your child could still run the tablet under the faucet or step on it, but that’s where the amazing 2-year worry-free guarantee comes in. Setup is quick and easy — you set up profiles for each user, and at that time you specify your child’s name, give him or her an avatar, and designate their age group.

An option is given to move all age appropriate material from your Kindle account to the device, and your downloads will start. Because of the free year of Kindle Freetime Unlimited, there are quite a few books, shows, and apps that you can stream or download to the device as well. From what I can tell about the Kindle Freetime Unlimited lineup, this will be a great option for most kids between the ages of 3 and perhaps 9 or 10. What I really like about the setup process is that you can set times when the Fire HD Kids Edition will automatically turn itself off or not work, and there are great parental controls for setting reading goals as well as limits on time that can be spent watching videos or playing with apps. Here’s the bottom of the screen — it just missed fitting in the previous picture. Here’s where my complaints start. First of all, there’s a pretty big age gap between kids “8 and younger”, and that’s the bottom end range on a device that is aimed at kids aged 3 and up.

I don’t see any way to block specific content in the approved age group, if — for example — you don’t want your 4-year-old watching Hannah Montana. That’s a pretty big potential problem, don’t you think? Another gripe is that the tablet ships with 8GB memory, but only 4.5GB is usable by your child. When I was setting up the device I added some books, some apps, and some shows, and then I started getting this message. Bear in mind that there is no way to add a microSD card to the device — what it came with is all you’ll ever have — and it’s not much. When you run out of storage — and you will — there is no way to access Freetime delete content to free up space. As an added bonus, you’ll have to deal with WiFi turning itself off due to the low memory, as well as every time you switch between profiles. This is an infinite loop of insanity. At this time, the (not so great) camera isn’t accessible to children’s profiles — at least the ones under 8.

You can access the camera under the parent’s account, but that defeats the purpose of even having a camera on a kid’s device. Amazon says this feature is coming soon, but I could swear that distinction wasn’t there when I pre-ordered. Navigation can be a bit tricky; you have to tap the screen to pull up the nav buttons — which display inside the app portion of the screen, not on the edge, and while most kids over the age of 5 or 6 will soon figure this out, this is — once again — a tablet that is aimed for ages 3 and up. You need to be prepared to help your child; you won’t be able to hand it off and expect them to figure it out easily on their own. That sort of defeat the purpose of this being a “kid’s” tablet, don’t you think? It’s also worth noting that other than general divisions of books, videos, apps, and characters, there is no order or way to organize content stored on the Kindle Fire HD Kids Edition. On the one hand it’s great that everything available to your child will show in their feed — waiting to be downloaded — but on the other hand it gets confusing when they can’t download something because they are out of memory, they can’t figure out how to delete content to free up memory, and on it goes.

The X that you see on the books in the picture below shows that the are in the download queue and you can cancel that, but once downloaded pressing and holding a book will only allow you to “Add to Home” or “Remove from Carousel”. Once the book is downloaded and shown on the Home screen, you can finally press and hold to remove it from the device, but the whole process is confusing and poorly done. It all seems like a bit of a mess, to be honest. I realize that I am used to the iPad or regular Android tablet user interface’s, so I thought that maybe I was expecting too much or being a bit harsh about the way everything was set up on the Fire HD Kids Edition, but then I wandered down the rabbit hole of user reviews for the device, and that’s when I realized that it wasn’t just me having issues and difficulty with this particular model. Out of the 244 current user reviews, the majority are 3 stars or less, and many of the complaints are for issues I encountered (or worse).

My conclusion is that while the concept behind this tablet is great, it’s just not implemented that well. Even so, because of the included one-year Freetime subscription, the 2-year warranty, and the fact that my granddaughter is smart enough to quickly figure out the navigation, I’m still going to put it under the tree for her. My hope is that she will love it and that there may be some updates to address some of the usability issues, but if not — I will make full use of Amazon’s excellent return policy. What I Like: The Kindle Fire HD tablet is solidly built and should be well protected in the included rubbery foam case; parental controls are easy to set, and for the most part they are easy to work with What Needs Improvement: Extremely limited memory with no way to expand; WiFi drops every time you switch profiles — which you will have to do to add some content and to manage the device when it inevitably freezes from lack of memory; no external buttons — all navigation controls are through the screen, and that can be an issue when playing games or for less coordinated children;