Summary
When it comes to parental control, Qustodio has been in the game for over a decade now, and it continues to expand its feature set and support for a wide range of platforms.
The only other product that offers support for Android, iOS, Windows, macOS, Kindle Fire tablets, and Chrome OS is Net Nanny. It is a strong challenger when it comes to total platform coverage since it supports all of these operating systems along with Chrome OS.
With a few noteworthy exceptions for iOS users, Qustodio is also one of the solutions that offers the most comprehensive set of features available. In terms of cost, Qustodio may be quite expensive depending on the amount of devices that you need to cover; however, the basic premium plan for five devices, which costs $54.95 per year, is comparable to the majority of the other options available.
Qustodio parental control app review
The one feature that sets Qustodio apart from its competitors is its ability to monitor calls and texts, a capability that almost all other parental control applications have abandoned in recent years. In the event that you place a high level of importance on this function, the fact that Qustodio continues to provide it on Android may make it your top pick among the excellent parental control applications. Continue reading for the remainder of our review of Qustodio.
What is covered by QUSTODIO, as well as its costs
In recent years, Qustodio’s price structure has stayed relatively same. The company offers a basic free tier that includes web filtering, monitoring of social media and the internet, time limitations, and an online monitoring dashboard. This tier covers a single device simultaneously.
In order to access all of the premium features, you have the option of selecting one of three different plans, which are determined by the number of devices that you need to safeguard. The annual cost of coverage is $54.95 for up to five devices, $96.95 for ten devices, and $137.95 for fifteen as much as fifteen devices.
The only difference between the paying plans is the number of devices that may be used. Every package comes with all of the premium features and complete support for all platforms, including Android, iOS, Windows, Mac, and Kindle Fire device. Support for Chrome OS is somewhat more restricted, consisting of an Android app to manage time and a Chrome extension to limit surfing time and monitor activities. Both of these features are offered by Chrome.
THE SETUP OF QUSTODIO
My personal choice is to register for these services via their own websites whenever it is feasible to do so; but, if you would rather use your smartphone, the Qustodio applications for Android and iOS make it simple to do so.
To begin, you will need to create an account for yourself. After that, the application will ask you to create profiles for your children. After entering your name, you will be prompted to choose a year of birth, a gender, and an avatar from a list of six that are available to you. There are some peculiarities with the avatars, and you are unable to add a picture of your kid.
Addition of a gadget for the youngster is the next stage in the process. You have the option of going to the download website for Qustodio or just downloading the “Kids App Qustodio” from the app store that is appropriate to your system.
In light of the fact that children have a tendency to give their applications poor reviews, Qustodio, like a number of other parental-control systems, employs distinct apps for parents and children. The app will guide you through the process of providing the appropriate rights, including the installation of a profile that enables the administration of the kid’s device(s), once you have signed into your account on the device that the child is using.
On the other hand, if you just have one kid and one device, the process of setting up the device is fantastic since it does a terrific job of guiding you and making the process quicker and easier. Because I constantly create accounts for two children, I find it a little bit annoying that I have to go through everything once again for the second kid. Instead of creating all of the accounts and then going on to the download procedure, I always have to go through everything again for the second child.
For the most part, this is a matter of personal taste; however, if you have two or more children, you should be aware that this is a procedure that must be done one at a time.
In the pop-up dialogue box, the most current versions of Android and iOS do not allow you to provide persistent location capabilities to an application. In order for the location tracking feature to function properly, you must ensure that you go to the settings menu and set the location permission to “always.”
After you have successfully installed and activated the kid app, you can then return to the Qustodio online site or your parental app in order to make adjustments to the appropriate settings. I was overjoyed to see that Qustodio had gone through a significant revamp of its online site, which now offers a contemporary and user-friendly design that is consistent with the mobile applications.
Although Qustodio will prefill some of the settings for an individual kid, such as web filtering, it will leave the majority of the options deactivated by default. It is necessary for you to ensure that the settings correspond to the preferences that you have for your kid.
The process of removing Qustodio from a child’s smartphone was not difficult; however, in order to do it on Android, the parental password is required. When using iOS, the passcode of the device is required. When tampering is found, the parent app will, of course, promptly notify you of the situation. Even if a youngster were to be successful in circumventing such security measures, they would only be granted a temporary pass from using the application.
APP MANAGEMENT OFFERS BY QUSTODIO
Due to the fact that I had previously performed tests on Qustodio, I was prepared for its less-than-ideal application administration mechanism. It does not immediately provide you with a comprehensive list of all the applications that are installed on a child’s device. On the contrary, it only adds an application when the kid actually runs it.
You will either have to sit down and manually activate each app on the child’s device, or you will have to make decisions on applications as you see them separately crop up in the list. There is an option to be informed each time a new app is used, so you may choose to be notified whenever a new app is used.
Immediately after an application is added to the list, the functionality functions just as it was stated, and any modifications are implemented in a timely manner. A particular daily time restriction may be established for an application, the application can be blocked totally, the application can be blocked momentarily, or the time limit for the day can be reset and reset again.
One of the features that seems to be superior on the Android side compared to the iOS side is app management. It is compatible with any Android application, and if a kid attempts to start an application that has been prohibited or an expiration date, it will display a personalized screen that explains what is happening.
This is more restricted for iOS users, but it is an improvement over what it was before. Qustodio reports that there are around 6,000 iOS applications that are compatible with the functions that are associated with app management.
Instead of providing an explanation, the functionality resulted in a network error for us whenever the youngster attempted to access an application that was either banned or had its time limit expired. It is possible that the problem has improved as a result of Qustodio’s recent decision to monitor kid traffic via an on-device proxy service rather than a distant virtual private network (VPN).
THE FILTERING OF QUSTODIO
Similar to the other components of the Qustodio online portal, this feature has undergone a significant redesign that has resulted in significant enhancements. There are a total of 29 categories on the website, and by default, ten of them are restricted. However, it is evident that you have the ability to adjust them to suit your tastes.
There are three distinct alternatives available for each category, and they are as follows: allow, block, or alarm. When you choose alert, the site visit will be highlighted in the activity timeline with a “Browsing alert” for the parent. Block and allow are relatively self-explanatory, but alert will flag the site visit.
Although you are unable to add new categories, you are able to make exceptions for certain websites by using any one of the three ways that were previously described. Despite the fact that visits to flagged categories will still be shown in the activity timeline, there is a fourth option that allows you to decide to simply ignore such visits.
The filtering settings tab is a catch-all for a variety of features with varying capabilities. You have the option to ban all browsers that are not supported, which is obviously only available for Android. Because it was effective, I would suggest that you make use of it. In addition to enforcing Safe Search and enabling warnings for when your kid attempts to visit a website that has been prohibited, you have the ability to restrict access to any and all websites that cannot be classified.
Qustodio’s web filtering did not leave a favorable impression on me overall. It failed to detect sites that should have been marked in a clear and obvious manner across many categories, even when the sites were indicated as being in the prohibited category in the activity timeline.
I am unable to suggest Qustodio for its web filtering capabilities; but, the software does capture and record the websites that your kid sees. If your objective is to monitor and monitor your child’s online activities rather than to prevent them from visiting certain websites, then this will work perfectly.
The QUSTODIO tool for managing time
There are two distinct parts pertaining to time management: the Daily Time Limits and the Restricted Times portions. These sections ignore the app-specific time management that was described before.
Daily Time Limits provides you with a clock interface that allows you to set a time restriction for each day, ranging from 15 minutes all the way up to 24 hours. It also provides you with the days of the week. Additionally, you have the option to entirely block the day or to reset the clock for the day.
It would be convenient to be able to pick and configure numerous days at the same time, such as working weekdays as opposed to weekends, for example; however, you shouldn’t be changing this on a regular basis. This is simply a minor source of annoyance.
The whole of the week is shown on a single screen in Restricted Times, with colored blocks acting as representations of each hour-long slot. By clicking or tapping on a block, you may change the color of the block from red to “blocked” or from blue to green so that it appears as “allowed.”
This works extremely well and allows you to quickly set up the calendar for the week. However, there are certain design considerations surrounding the color change that are cause for concern. Whenever it is deemed necessary, parents are able to effortlessly offer their children more screen time on both platforms.
In this particular area, Apple’s iOS does not do very well. When I blocked off time on my iPhone 12, the Qustodio app threw up a “Lost iPhone” warning message to let me know that my time had run out. The only options that were presented as being accessible were the flashlight and the opportunity to make an emergency call.
On the other hand, I was able to remove this without any significant difficulty. Your child’s activity will continue to appear in the timeline, which means that you will be able to see that they are not truly adhering to the time constraints that they have set for themselves.
On Android, you are still able to use the phone during prohibited hours; however, if you open any applications other than the phone and messaging, you will be shown with the “Time’s up” screen from Qustodio.
Call and texting management is provided by QUSTODIO
Due to the fact that this functionality is exclusive to Android, Google has now made it impossible for Qustodio to include it into the Qustodio app that is available on the Google Play Store. You will need to sideload a different version of the software that you obtained straight from Qustodio’s website in order to monitor your child’s calls and texts. This is necessary in order to do this.
Following the installation of this version of the application on the mobile device belonging to the kid, it will be necessary to restart the device in order for the newly added capabilities to appear. In the parental dashboard, you will then be able to see the available choices for this area.
You have the ability to accept or ban incoming or outgoing calls completely, as well as block individual phone numbers, when it comes to managing calls and texts. This function is similar to the online filtering area. Text messages cannot be blocked; however, there is a separate option that allows you to access the content of any SMS text messages; however, this will not allow you to view any MMS text messages (pictures or videos).
Following the activation of this feature, it performed just as it was described. Qustodio is the only software that we tested lately that still allows you to block calls and read messages; thus, if this is a feature that is really important to you, then you should put Qustodio at the top of your list of priorities.
Tracking of locations with QUSTODIO
Using Qustodio’s location tracking feature, you are able to check both the current position of your kid as well as their location history. After the function has been activated, this occurs automatically on both Android and iOS. However, the frequency of location checks is significantly lower on iOS, with pinging occurring around every five minutes.
The geofencing function that is now available in Qustodio enables users to specify a location and then build a circle that is centered on that point and has a diameter that may range anywhere from 350 to 650 feet. When one of your children joins or leaves that circle, you will be able to get a notification automatically.
Because it can automatically verify that your kid has arrived at school or home for the day, location monitoring may unquestionably offer you with a sense of peace of mind.
On the other hand, I would really want to see a few modifications made to Qustodio’s geofencing. For starters, I would want to have the ability to move the circle about on the map. This would be convenient for situations such as centering the circle on a park, for instance.
In the second place, I would want to input anything other than a particular location. It would be wonderful if there was a search tool that could bring up, for instance, the child’s school or childcare facility without the need to look up the real address.
Just a few minor objections are needed. As a whole, Qustodio has done an excellent job of expanding its location tracking capabilities, and it is currently one of the parental control applications that offers the most comprehensive set of features in this category.
Extras Panic Button on the QUSTODIO button
I’m sorry, but this one is only available for Android users. To access the Panic Button, the parental portal or app must first be activated. Once this is done, the Panic Button may be accessible via the SOS button located at the bottom of the child’s app.
In order for the youngster to activate it, they must first press the SOS button, and then they must press a circular SOS button on the subsequent screen. When you do this, an emergency message that includes the child’s current location will be sent to all of the trusted contacts that you have established inside the app. Messages like these may be sent out by email and text messaging.
These trustworthy contacts are the only ones that are contacted; this does not call emergency services. It should be emphasized that Qustodio makes this point very obvious inside the software.
Surveillance of Society
Activity on Facebook is the only social platform that gets monitored. At the same time as Qustodio’s desktop program, which includes a tracking plug-in, is monitoring a Mac or PC, it is necessary to activate it on that computer. After this step has been completed, all future Facebook activity that your kid engages in will be reflected in Qustodio, independent of the device that your child uses to access Facebook.
In contrast to many of Qustodio’s rivals, this is not a function that can be found on their platforms. Kaspersky is the only company that does anything comparable, while Net Nanny provides content filtering for Facebook but does not monitor its users.
The Monitoring of YouTube
Considering that there is a great deal of content that is not appropriate for children to see on YouTube, this is a brand new function that is very much appreciated. You have the ability to restrict access to YouTube on the web, and you also have the ability to monitor a child’s activities inside the YouTube app, including the videos they watch and the searching terms they use.
Despite the fact that the monitoring application performed well on both Android and iOS, I was unable to successfully block YouTube.com on the web on iOS. On iOS, visits to YouTube.com did still show up on the activity timeline, along with a list of any videos that were viewed; hence, this is effective if monitoring alone is sufficient for you.
THE VERDICT OF THE QUSTODIO REVIEW
Despite the fact that Qustodio has a very rich feature set and compatibility for a wide range of platforms, its web filtering does not live up to expectations, and it has an excessive number of functionality restrictions on iOS. It is because of this that Qustodio is unable to compete with the best solutions that are now available on the market.
It is possible that Qustodio is the best option for you if you are not more than five Android devices in your coverage area, if you want to control calls and texts, and if you are more interested in monitoring than blocking. On the other hand, it is a significant number of qualifications, and the majority of parents would be better served by Net Nanny, or Kaspersky Safe Kids, if you are looking for something that is more reasonably priced.
