Bark makes some interesting efforts to protect your kids online, but does this parental control app do enough?
Just about every parental control app around promises to keep your kids away from the worst web dangers, but often they give you very little choice over how this works. An app might block chat apps completely for under 12s, for instance, but then allow 12 and overs to do whatever they like; not much ‚parental control‘ there. Bark goes much further, monitoring messages, texts, emails and 30+ top apps and social networks, analyzing text, photos and videos for what it calls ‚concerning interactions.‘ If it picks up anything it feels might be a sign of cyberbullying, predators, sexting, drug use, suicidal thoughts and more, the system sends alerts via email, SMS, or direct to the parent’s app. Bark hasn’t forgotten the basics, and it also offers web content filtering, app and screen time management, location monitoring and ‚check-in alerts‘ to let you know when your child arrives at an important destination (home, school, and so forth – you can define as many as you need.) If there’s a catch here, it’s that Bark’s monitoring abilities vary considerably across available platforms, and they’re not always what you’d expect. The iOS edition can’t monitor TikTok or Skype, for instance, and the Windows app only supports two browsers: Chrome and Edge (Firefox isn’t catered for). Check out the official website guide to find out more about what to expect. Bark’s power comes at a price, with its Bark Premium plan costing $14 a month, or $99 annually, to protect an unlimited number of devices. Bark also offers a cheaper Bark Junior app for $5 a month, $49 annually, but this only includes the more basic parental controls features: content filtering, app management, screen time limits, location monitoring. The intelligent text analysis technologies, the features which make Bark interesting, aren’t included. If you’re only looking for the parental control essentials, there are much better deals around. Kaspersky Safe Kids has a decent feature set and protects unlimited devices for $15 a year. Kroha includes some handy monitoring tools, and its annual plan covers up to five devices for just $12. If Bark’s intelligent monitoring tools sound interesting, though, it may well be worth the extra cash. Sign up and Bark doesn’t take your money for seven days, giving you a chance to see how it works, and you won’t be billed if you cancel before the week is up. Getting started with Bark seems easy, at least initially. Hand over your email, choose a password, and a simple wizard walks you through the setup process: creating profiles for each child, selecting the device types they use, and providing details on their email account provider, apps, their browser (Chrome or Edge) and more. The wizard keeps life easy by offering to apply default rules (content filtering, safe search, turning off the internet at a specified bedtime) based on your child’s age.
