Internet tracking software?

[Jeramie]

A guy I work with is worried about his teenage son. When he gets home from work all of the history is deleted from the browser. The boy gets home an hour or so before he does so he is worried about what he is looking at.

He wants to track what has been on the browser. I told him I didn’t have a clue how to do it. He doesn’t want to do the parenting software to block bad sites. If he blocks it the kid will likely just surf somewhere else. He wants to track it without letting the kid know. Is there some way to backup the history file or should he look at software to track where he has been online? I told him I thought there was likely software that did screen shots so he could actually see where the kid had been but I couldn’t confirm that. Im sure someone has some history with this….

My girls are still too young to do much on the net so I have not ran into that problem and solution yet.

[gzilla45]

While I've never used them personally, there are plenty of software applications out there for tracking internet traffic. I would just have him Google 'intnernet tracking software' and he should get a big list. Depending upon what browser they use there are other ways to view it as well. I would think another Google search there would provide pretty good instructions as well. I just looked it up and it is pretty easy to see log files that contain that data.

[redkneck]

I think he should just have a talk with him first. There are also of course options that automatically clear history on exit that may be enabled. Once the kid finds out there's tracking software on the PC, which is quite possible, there's going to be some real animosity.

Don't get me wrong, we need to protect our kids, but some things can sure backfire on you.