The 10 Best Parental Control Software for Linux System in 2020

Different people have different perceptions of parental control
software. But most of the people think that this type of software
should be used to monitor the activities of the children. The
Internet is a world of everything. Most of the contents of the
internet are not suitable for children.

Moreover, they are always curious about different matters, and
that could lead them to distract from their path. If you think that
your child is consuming only kids friendly content, excessive
screen time is a serious matter that you should be concerned about.
These are the cases when the parental control and web filtering
software come in handy.

They allow you to control their screen time, content type,
accessible websites, and many other aspects to protect them against
distractions. Linux comes with some great parental control
settings, just like any other major operating system. But if you
want more advanced controls, then there are some Linux parental
control tools you should check out.

Best Parental Control Software for
Linux

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Choosing the best software for any specific task is the most
confusing part. Besides, there are both paid and free tools
available on the internet. In terms of free tools, you can have
some trials and errors to meet the sweet spot. But before spending
money on software, you should be well aware of the functionalities.
Here we have enlisted 10 Linux parental control software that we
think are the bests to protect your beloved kids. One of them
should meet your very own requirements. So, check them out.

1. Timekpr-nExT

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Timekpr-nExT is free to use screen time limiting software for
Linux. It has a beautiful GTK based graphical user interface for
the controller dashboard. You can use this on any major desktop
environments. This tool can limit the usage time for different
accounts and log them out automatically after the session
expires.

It provides a separate user dashboard for individual accounts to
track their remaining time right onto the desktop. You might have
heard the name of the famous parental controlling tool for Linux
named Timekpr revived. After the retirement of that tool,
Timekpr-nExT came as a fork with some additional features.

Key Features of Timekpr-nExT

• It features three individual modules named Server, Client, and
  Admin for different types of user accounts.
• The admin can set different time intervals for different days
  of the week. The time is measured precisely by saving on the
  memory.
• This tool can automatically exclude inactive sessions for a
  certain account to compensate for the lost time for logging into
  another account.
• The administrator has got full control over adding or
  subtracting duration even after creating the schedule.
• The tray icon will constantly show the metrics so that the user
  account can be aware of their remaining time for that session.

Download^[1]

2. GNOME Nanny

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GNOME Nanny is a pretty old Linux parental control software
designed for the GNOME desktop environment. But it works smoothly
on any Linux distribution. This is mainly a web filtering software
with some additional capabilities.

This tool is not updated regularly for a long time. But this
thing offers so many features that it can still beat most modern
parental controlling tools. Besides, the graphical user interface
of this tool is very helpful for non-tech parents.

Key Features of GNOME Nanny

• You can limit the desktop usage time for a specific user
  account.
• The parents can filter out specific webpages as well as their
  usage time on browsers, emails, and instant messaging apps.
• The user interface is a bit outdated but very intuitive and
  easy to understand.
• You can even import your blacklisted websites from other
  systems to this tool for easy setup.

Download^[2]

3. E2guardian

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This is a completely free and open source web filtering tool for
Linux based distributions. This tool is not meant to limit the
offline usage of your computer. Rather it provides a bunch of
network and security-related features as a bonus addition.

Apart from a specific list of domains and URLs, this tool can
block content based on phrase matching and related artificial intelligence
algorithms^[3]. You can use this tool
to meet your specific needs from their Github repo if you are a
developer.

Key Features of E2guardian

• It has advanced features like the manipulation of web cookies
  based on header analysis.
• You can limit the uploading and downloading file size, and that
  is very convenient when you are using a metered connection.
• Based on the severity, you can divide the URL list into three
  different categories called white, grey, and black.
• This tool can even filter images in Google search, and it has
  prevention against other bypassing.

Download ^[4]

4. Privoxy

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Privoxy is yet another web filtering software tool intended to
use for parental controlling. It is a veteran tool in the world of
web filtering, and this is completely free to use. This tool can
control web access and manipulate requested data for the safety of
the children.

The iconic feature of this tool is that it gives the
administrator the flexibility and customization of installation. In
most cases, you can configure Privoxy by using the web-based
dashboard. You can even use this tool for firewalling your
corporate office.

Key Features of Privoxy

• It can manipulate website content by replacing texts, banners,
  images, etc.
• The built-in ad blocker can be used to hide distracting and
  adult ads shown by different auto ad networks.
• You can configure this tool separately for different users, and
  the configuration file is always kept separate from each other for
  preventing overriding.
• You can develop an HTML based dummy webpage from templates to
  show when someone wants to enter into a blocked website.

Download ^[5]

5. WebCleaner

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WebCleaner is a Linux parental control software for restricting
web usage. It has a built-in HTML parser written in C programming language^[6]
that is capable of filtering some modules like advertisements.

This tool can additionally filter out some unnecessary
JavaScript pop-ups that drastically reduces the page loading time.
This is an open source tool that can be modified by anyone, and the
cross-platform capability will keep all the devices protected.

Key Features of WebCleaner

• This tool can eliminate the heavy animations of GIF and other
  similar file formats.
• It can be integrated with another popular web filtering tool
  SquidGuard to blacklist abusive sites.
• WebCleaner can fix the security flaws of any website. Besides,
  it can create HTTPS-based secure connections when needed.
• It uses gZip archiving software for compressing files to reduce
  bandwidth usage.

Download^[7]

6. WebContentControl

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WebContentControl is a simple yet powerful tool for parental
controlling web activities. It has a straightforward graphical user
interface that is used to configure the tool. This package includes
an installation wizard for installing some additional tools like
TinyProxy, FireHOL, etc.

You can easily turn on these additional networking tools by
using the GUI of this software and perform parental controls. This
tool changes the config file for each user. It can even backup and
restore the config files while installing or uninstalling the
tool.

Key Features of
WebContentControl

• It can generate the configuration files automatically for
  TinyProxy, FireHOL, etc. networking tools.
• This tool can lock the proxy settings for Firebox and some
  other browsers to perform SSL filtering.
• It primarily supports two individual URLs or domain listings
  for blocking them.
• This tool can filter out specific IP addresses and their
  contents by scanning HTML headers.

Download^[8]

7. SquidGuard

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SquidGuard is a free parental control software for Linux. It is
an add on to the original networking tool Squid. SquidGuard is used
for URL blocking and performing some other web filtering operations
with Squid.

This is is very lightweight and runs smoothly on any
configuration. It features many configuration options such as time
and date, group sources, group destinations, access control
listings, etc.

Key Features of SquidGuard

• This tool can create a URL blocking database from some selected
  expressions.
• It has strong protection against bypassing block lists by
  entering the IP addresses.
• You can customize the page that will be shown instead of a
  blocked website.
• It can manipulate website data differently for different types
  of users of the computer.

Download^[9]

8. MintNanny

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As the name suggests, this software is quite similar to GNOME
Nanny but with a different flavor. This tool was originally
developed for Linux Mint that is commonly used in home computers
and media centers. But it can be used in other distros as well.
Function wise this is a pretty basic software.

Although you can block the unwanted domain names by using the
intuitive graphical user interface, you can not block IP addresses
like other advanced tools. But for your child, it is enough because
most of the cases, they are not smart enough to enter and IP
address.

 

Key Features of MintNanny

• This tool can block domains and URLs so that your child can not
  enter abusive websites.
• The user interface is quite simple and minimal looking.
• You can redirect the domains to a null IP address.
• This tool is very lightweight and doesn’t use that much
  computer resources while running.

Download^[10]

9. DansGuardian

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DansGuardian is a simple and easy to use software for parental
control. It works just like the guardian angel to protect the kids
from unwanted web activities. This tool was developed by
SmoothWall.

Though this is an outdated freeware for Linux, it is quite
capable of doing its job. There is a commercial tool with some
additional functionalities by the same developer named
SmoothGuardian.

Key Features of DansGuardian

• It can use separate proxy servers for blocking websites and
  abusive content.
• This tool has additional virus detection capabilities for
  protecting your crucial data against attacks.
• It can block websites from your customized lists of URLs.
• Apart from this, it can scan and understand some words and
  phrases for filtering content.

Download^[11]

10. PeerGuardian

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This is an open source parental control tool for your computer.
PeerGuardian is the successor to the popular veteran web filtering
tool named MoBlock. This is the unofficial fork for Linux and
loaded with many useful features.

The original developers of this tool are not actively
maintaining this software. So use this with your risks. If you are
concerned about your security, then you can always modify the
source code and build your version.

Key Features of PeerGuardian

• It uses a huge database of blocklists containing a wide range
  of IP addresses for blocking websites.
• It has a built-in list editor for managing multiple lists that
  can update automatically.
• PeerGuardian is specialized for securing your data while
  connecting to a peer-to-peer network.
• This tool can block all of the IPv4 addresses, including TCP,
  UDP, etc.

Download ^[12]

The Bottom Line

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Well, Linux is considered the most secure platform for
networking. On the other hand, the Linux distros offer much
flexibility and freedom to the users. The combination of both has
some obvious pros and cons. Your child may be exposed to a huge
world of negativity while using computers and the internet. Most of
the tools on the above list are web filtering software, while some
are intended for resisting the offline usage of your Linux
machine.

Hence, using computers and the internet from an early age helps
to develop the children’s mind and outlook, you shouldn’t always
keep them away. For this reason, you may use one or more parental
control software from the above list to control the usage. If you
have any other recommendations for parental controlling tools, then
you can comment below to let others know.