I REALLY want to get away from using all Microsoft products. My spouse and I use Linux but not for our kids just simply because I have yet to find anything that does what Microsoft Family does - being able to remotely set time limits, keep an eye on screen time stats, block websites and apps remotely, see what websites they’ve been using, etc.

So far I’ve found some disparate apps or methods that can do some of this. But our family situation is complicated, not least of which includes disability and special needs. So basically, yeah, I need to be able to spy on what my kids are doing on their computers but I don’t want Microsoft or any other companies being able to do that. I would like to be able to switch the kids laptops/PCs onto Linux as well, but again, the lack of remote parental controls or some sort of centralised access has been preventing that so far.

We don’t need a phone app, but would just really like some central place that we can do this from that respects privacy, isn’t trying to sell us yet more crap and is preferably FOSS.

  • @node815
    1•1 year ago

    I use this:

    Timekpr-NExT (It’s stylized as this way) Here’s a decent write up of it:

    https://itsfoss.com/timekpr-next/

    And the source I think: https://mjasnik.gitlab.io/timekpr-next/

    Here’s our household need for it and I think most people will not like it, but it’s what works for us. I have a special needs adult step daughter which has a TBI from a major traumatic auto accident at the age of 2. For most people who see her, she passes as high functioning but that is on the outside. As a result of the accident and brain injury at age 2, In real life, she has problems with the concept of time and time management. She also lacks the executive functioning that most adults have such as the correct decisions in life to make, just to name a few. Having this on her system (Arch Linux) allows us to at least limit the screen time which is what we were wanting. As for filtering NSFW stuff. She’s extremely turned off by the thought of people being intimate so, we are pretty comfortable with unfiltered internet. (I also run a DNS server in which if needed can filter traffic).

    Another person mentioned using SELinux - this reminded me of using OpenSuSE - that distro is very tuned toward adminstrative access for even basic things such as modifying the network (Well…at least basic for me LOL ) . I think of it is as an ideal OS for small organizations with a single IT person on staff.