Qustodio parental control app review
Our Verdict
Qustodio supports most platforms and is one of the few parental-command apps that can all the same log texts and calls on Android, only its feature set is much more limited on iOS.
For
- Wide platform support
- Extensive characteristic set at all price tiers
- Solid UI on web and in apps
- Telephone call/text monitoring
Against
- Relatively expensive
- Unreliable web filtering
- Limited features on iOS
Tom's Guide Verdict
Qustodio supports near platforms and is one of the few parental-control apps that can all the same log texts and calls on Android, but its characteristic gear up is much more limited on iOS.
Pros
- +
Broad platform support
- +
Extensive characteristic set at all price tiers
- +
Solid UI on web and in apps
- +
Call/text monitoring
Cons
- -
Relatively expensive
- -
Unreliable web filtering
- -
Limited features on iOS
Qustodio: Specs
Cost: Gratis to $138/yr
Number of devices: 1 to 15
Platforms: Android, iOS, Kindle Fire, Mac, Windows, Chrome Bone
Web portal for parents: Yes
Phone call logging: Android simply
Text logging: Android only
Phone call blocking: Android only
Text blocking: No
Geofencing: Yep
Location tracking: Yes
Location history: Yes
Web monitoring: Yeah
Web filter: Yeah
Time limits: Aye
Scheduling: Aye
App management: Android only
App blocker: Yeah (limited on iOS)
Qustodio has been in the parental-control game for nearly a decade now, and it continues to build on its robust characteristic set and broad platform support.
With support for Android, iOS, Windows, macOS, Kindle Burn down tablets and nigh recently Chrome OS, it is matched only by Cyberspace Nanny and is a strong contender when it comes to overall platform coverage.
Qustodio is also one of the near feature-complete options out there, with a couple of notable exceptions for iOS users. Depending on the number of devices you demand to cover, Qustodio tin can exist a chip pricey, but the basic 5-device premium plan for $54.95 a year is right in line with most of the competition.
Qustodio's one standout feature is call and text monitoring, which nearly all the other parental-control apps have dropped in recent years. If this characteristic is crucial to you, the fact that Qustodio even so offers it on Android might make information technology your top option among the all-time parental command apps.
Read on for the balance of our Qustodio review.
Qustodio: Costs and what'southward covered
Qustodio's pricing has remained pretty static in recent years, with a basic gratis tier that covers a single device with web filtering, web and social-media monitoring, time limits and an online monitoring dashboard.
To unlock the full premium features, you can cull from 1 of iii plans, depending on the number of devices you need to protect. Up to 5 devices tin be covered for $54.95 a twelvemonth, ten devices for $96.95, and fifteen devices for $137.95.
Device limits are the just differences between the paid plans. Each plan includes all the premium features and full support across Android, iOS, Windows, Mac, and Kindle Fire. Chrome OS support is a flake more limited, consisting of the Android app to manage fourth dimension and a Chrome extension to limit browsing time and monitor activity.
Qustodio: Installation
My preference is to fix these services upwardly through their websites when possible, merely if you prefer to stick to your smartphone, the Qustodio apps for Android and iOS make that easy.
The get-go stride is to create your account. The app will then prompt you to create child profiles. You just enter a name and then select a twelvemonth of nativity, a gender and an avatar from a gear up of six options. The avatars are a bit odd, and you can't upload a photo of your child.
The adjacent step is to add a device for the child. Y'all tin can either navigate to Qustodio'due south download page or simply download the "Kids App Qustodio" from the relevant app shop.
Like a number of other parental-control services, Qustodio uses separate parent and child apps as kids tend to give their apps terrible ratings. Yous'll sign into your account on the child's device, and so the app walks you through the process of granting the necessary permissions including installing a profile that allows for the management of their device(s).
If you have only 1 child with 1 device, the setup process is excellent as it does a skilful job of guiding you and making the process quick and like shooting fish in a barrel. Every bit I e'er set up two child accounts, I e'er discover it a bit irritating that I need to loop dorsum through everything again for the second child rather than setting upwards all the accounts and and then moving to the download process.
This is largely personal preference, merely if yous have two or more than children, be aware that this is a one-at-a-time setup process.
The more recent versions of Android and iOS don't let you grant permanent location privileges to an app in the popular-upwards dialogue box. If you want location tracking to work, exist sure to go to the settings menu and toggle the location privilege to "ever."
One time yous have the kid app installed and working, you lot can return to the Qustodio web portal or your parental app to customize the settings. I was thrilled to find that Qustodio has massively overhauled its web portal, which now features a modernistic, intuitive design that matches the mobile apps.
Qustodio prefills some of an individual child's settings, for example with spider web filtering, simply it leaves most of the settings disabled by default. You'll need to make sure the settings align with your preferences for your child.
Uninstalling Qustodio from a child'south device wasn't difficult, but on Android, it requires the parental password. On iOS, it requires the device passcode. Naturally, the parent app notifies you immediately that tampering has been detected. It would be a curt-lived reprieve from the app even if a kid managed to get past those security measures.
Qustodio: App management
As I had tested Qustodio previously, I was ready for its less-than-ideal app-direction system. It doesn't give yous a full listing of all the apps on a child'southward device right away. Instead, it adds an app only when the child launches it.
You will demand to either make determinations on apps as you lot come across them individually pop up in the list (there is an pick to be alerted each fourth dimension a new app is used), or you'll need to sit down and manually launch every app on the child'southward device.
Once an app has been added to the list, the feature works exactly equally advertised and changes are reflected quickly. Yous can choose to set a specific daily time limit for an app, cake the app entirely, block information technology temporarily or reset the time limit for the solar day.
App management is one feature that is better on the Android side than the iOS i. It works on any Android app, and when a child tries to launch a blocked or time-expired app, it will show a custom screen explaining what's going on.
For iOS users, this is more limited, although better than it was. At that place are approximately vi,000 iOS apps that piece of work with the app-management features, according to Qustodio.
For us, the characteristic caused a network mistake when the child tries to use a blocked or fourth dimension-expired app, rather than offering any explanation. But Qustodio'southward recent switch to an on-device proxy service rather than a remote VPN to monitor kid traffic may have improved that state of affairs.
Qustodio: Filtering
Similar the rest of the items on the Qustodio web portal, this feature is dramatically improved by the updated design. By default, 10 of the 29 full website categories are existence blocked, but obviously you can change these to fit your preferences.
For each category, you can choose three dissimilar options: allow, block or alert. Block and allow are pretty self-explanatory, while alarm will flag the site visit in the activity timeline with a "Browsing alarm" for the parent.
Yous can't add new categories, but you tin can create exceptions for specific websites using any of the 3 aforementioned options. In that location's a fourth choice to only ignore visits to flagged categories, although the visits will still announced in the activity timeline.
The settings tab for filtering is a catch-all for dissimilar features. Y'all tin choose to block all unsupported browsers, which naturally is Android-only. It worked well and I would recommend using it. You can block access to all websites that tin can't be categorized, enforce Safe Search and toggle on notifications for when your child tries to visit a blocked website.
Overall, I was unimpressed past Qustodio'south web filtering. Across multiple categories, it failed to place sites that clearly should have been flagged, even when the sites were identified as being in blocked category in the activity timeline.
The app does capture and record the sites your child visits, and so if your goal is to continue tabs on them rather than to preemptively restrict visits, this will work fine, but I can't recommend Qustodio for its web filtering. The gilt standard in filtering is Net Nanny, so if that function is important to you, accept a look at our Cyberspace Nanny review.
Qustodio: Time direction
Daily Time Limits and Restricted Times are two separate sections regarding time management, ignoring the aforementioned app-specific time direction.
Daily Fourth dimension Limits presents you with the days of the week and a clock interface that lets you fix a fourth dimension limit for each day, in increments of 15 minutes all the way up to 24 hours. You also can cake the day completely or reset the fourth dimension for the twenty-four hour period.
Information technology would be nice to be able to select and ready multiple days at once, weekdays versus weekends for example, but every bit you shouldn't be irresolute this constantly. it's only a mild frustration.
Restricted Times displays the full week on a single screen with colored blocks representing each hour-long window. You click or tap on a block to switch between ruby for "blocked" or a blue-to-green color fade for "allowed."
Questionable design decisions regarding the color shift aside, this works very well and let you quickly prepare the week's schedule. On both platforms, parents tin easily grant children extra screen time when warranted.
Apple'southward iOS doesn't hold upwards well in this category. When I blocked out fourth dimension on my iPhone 12, the Qustodio app popped up a "Lost iPhone" alert message to tell me that my time was up, with just the emergency-call option and the flashlight displayed every bit available.
However, I was able to swipe this away without a problem. Your child's activeness volition even so show up in the timeline, so you'll be able to meet that they aren't actually post-obit their time limits.
On Android you lot tin nevertheless use the phone during blocked times just opening any apps other than the phone and messaging will prompt you with the "Time's up" screen from Qustodio.
Qustodio: Telephone call and texting direction
This is an Android-only feature, and Google now prevents Qustodio from including this feature in the Qustodio app in Google Play Store. If y'all wish to monitor your kid's calls and texts, you will need to sideload a split version of the app downloaded directly from Qustodio's website.
Once you have installed this version of the app on the child's telephone, y'all'll need to restart the telephone for the new features to take consequence. Then you'll see the options for this section in the parental dashboard.
Telephone call and texting management works like the web filtering section — you can allow or block incoming or outgoing calls entirely or can cake specific telephone numbers. Text messages cannot exist blocked; at that place is a divide toggle to view the content of any SMS text messages, only this volition miss any MMS (photos/video) text messages.
This characteristic worked exactly as advertised once it was enabled. Qustodio is the simply app nosotros tested recently that still lets you block calls and read texts, so if this is a critical feature to y'all then Qustodio needs to exist high up on your list.
Qustodio: Location tracking
Qustodio'southward location tracking allows you lot to view your child'southward present location and location history. On both Android and iOS, this happens automatically once the characteristic is enabled, although the frequency of location checks is somewhat lower on iOS, pinging approximately every 5 minutes.
Qustodio at present has a geofencing feature that allows you to designate an address and so create a circle centered on that signal that is anywhere from 350 to 650 anxiety in diameter. You can then be notified whenever 1 of your children enters or exits that circle.
Location tracking can definitely provide peace of listen as information technology tin automatically verify that your child made it home or arrived at school for the day.
I'd love to see a couple of changes to Qustodio's geofencing, nonetheless. First, I'd like to exist able to move the circle on the map, which would exist prissy for centering the circle on a park, for example.
Second, I'd like to input something other than a specific address — information technology would be great to have a search part to pull up, for instance, the child's school or daycare center without needing to expect upwardly the actual address.
These are minor complaints. Overall Qustodio has done a nice chore of fleshing out its location tracking and information technology'due south now among the more feature-consummate parental-control apps in this expanse.
Panic Button
Sorry iOS users— this 1 is Android only. The Panic Push needs to be enabled in the parental portal or app and then can exist accessed via an SOS button at the bottom of the child's app.
The kid needs to hit that SOS button, and so a round SOS button on the next screen, to trigger information technology. This volition send out an emergency bulletin with the child's current location to all the trusted contacts that y'all've gear up upward inside the app. This message tin go out via text and email.
This does not contact emergency services, merely those trusted contacts. Qustodio is clear about this in the app, but information technology bears repeating.
Social Monitoring
Social monitoring is just for Facebook activity. It must be activated on a Mac or PC that is being monitored by Qustodio'due south desktop software, which adds a tracking plug-in. One time this pace is taken, futurity Facebook activity will appear in Qustodio regardless of which device your child is accessing Facebook from.
This is non a feature that you'll find on many of Qustodio'southward competitors. Merely Kaspersky offers something similar, while Cyberspace Nanny delivers content filtering for Facebook but not monitoring.
YouTube Monitoring
This is a new feature and a welcome addition as kids can certainly find plenty of objectionable material on YouTube. You can cake access to YouTube on the web and you tin view a child's activity in the YouTube app, including what they search for and which videos they view.
While the monitoring worked well on both Android and iOS, I had no luck with blocking YouTube.com on the web on iOS. Visits to YouTube.com on iOS did all the same show up on the activity timeline with listing of any videos that were watched, so this works if monitoring alone is enough for you.
Qustodio review: Bottom line
Qustodio has a very extensive feature fix and broad platform support, but its web filtering doesn't live upwardly to expectations and it has too many limitations in iOS. Because of this Qustodio doesn't manage to compete with the top options on the market place.
If you are covering five or fewer Android devices, desire call/text management and are looking more for monitoring than blocking, then Qustodio might exist right for you. But that's a lot of caveats, and most parents would be better served past Net Nanny, or if you are looking for something more affordable, Kaspersky Safe Kids.
Source: https://www.tomsguide.com/reviews/qustodio
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