Qustodio Parental Control Review

Qustodio is a parental control app for computers, tablets, and smartphones that helps you monitor your kids’ screen time and prevent them from seeing inappropriate content. You can set specific filters and time limits for websites and apps they use and supervise their device usage history.

Compared to similar products, Qustodio is a little more expensive, but it comes with extra features like a panic button and SMS monitoring, making it great for combating cyberbullying. The SMS and social media monitoring allows you to see text messages and social media posts, and it even lets you block contacts from specific phone numbers. Qustodio also has a user-friendly interface, location tracking, and geofencing, but unfortunately, it doesn’t have a tamper-alert feature.

We love that Qustodio works on a range of different devices:

• Android 
• Mac OSX
• iOS
• Chromebook
• Kindle
• Windows computers (but not Windows phones)

Each Qustodio plan includes these features:

• Internet and mobile app monitoring
• Social media monitoring
• Web filtering
• Time limit controls
• Online reporting dashboard

Qustodio Free does a great job on basic protection, but if you have multiple devices or multiple kids, you'll probably want to invest in one of the Premium packages for full protection and monitoring across all your kids' devices. This is what you'll get with a paid plan:

• Game and app blocking
• Panic button (Android only)
• Location tracking (Android or iOS device only)
• Call and SMS monitoring and blocking (Android only)
• YouTube search monitoring (Android, Mac, and Windows only)
• 30-day history reports

Some features aren't available on particular devices due to privacy restrictions, but this problem is consistent with virtually every parental control app. It's out of Qustodio's control.

The Qustodio interface is straightforward and easy to navigate, so even less tech-savvy parents shouldn't have a problem setting specific guidelines for their kids' devices. It's got some cool features like the Activity Timeline and Panic Button too.

Rather than just a list of the sites your child has visited, the Activity Timeline shows a minute-by-minute breakdown of all your child's activity on their device, including apps they use, websites they visit, and posts they share on social media.

In addition to allowing or blocking certain categories of websites, the Qustodio app can alert you if a child accesses a specific type of website, like a file-sharing or chat site. This allows kids to access some potentially risky—but not totally unsafe—sites, but you’ll know when so you can keep an eye on their activity.

Qustodio is pretty solid when it comes to security, but there's no feature to alert you if your child tries to alter the settings on the app.

Many parents give younger children hand-me-down phones and tablets after an upgrade, but depending on how old the devices are, Qustodio parental control software may not work on them. Check out the Qustodio site for system requirements and supported platforms to find out if the software is compatible with your devices.

We got several incompatibility messages from our antivirus software when we installed Qustodio on a Mac, and the Qustodio website even warns against this. The company recommends uninstalling antivirus software and then reinstalling it after you install Qustodio.

If you're looking to go beyond basic pornography protection and want software that will help you keep your kids safe from cyberbullying on social media, Qustodio is a good choice.

It has some of the most comprehensive software available for monitoring text messaging and social media accounts. And its time limit controls also help keep kids safe from screen addiction. But just keep in mind that it's also more expensive than other parental control options, and it doesn't always play well with iOS devices.

To write our Qustodio review, we downloaded the software and tested it ourselves to see how it operated in real-world situations. We read what others were saying about it, and we compared it to similar products. Find out more about our review process by checking out SafeWise's methodology.

When we downloaded the free Qustodio app, we got an instant three-day free trial of the Premium version. And, unlike many free trials, the Qustodio Premium trial didn't require a credit card number, so we didn't have to worry about cancelling after the three free days. 

Three days isn't a lot of time to test out a parental control product. Children's device activities are unpredictable and can vary from one day to the next, and you want to make sure the software can handle whatever your kid throws at it. We'd like to see a seven-day trial, at minimum, for this kind of software.

If you do subscribe, Qustodio gives support preference to customers with Premium subscriptions. If you often need tech support, consider upgrading to reduce wait time.

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