Covenant Eyes Review Accountability Filter Software

Covenant eyes software

 

Covenant Eyes Review – Accountability & internet filtering software

covenant eyes review

Today, I write my Covenant Eyes review for you to give you my opinion on the product.  Covenant Eyes is a software package that loads on your computer similar to other accountability & filtering software.  Unlike X3Watch, Covenant Eyes is not free.  You will pay a monthly fee based on what services you use and how many accounts you need.

The number of user accounts you choose will depend on how you want to police the internet in your house.  I have one account on my computer and it automatically logs on when my computer starts up.  Under this one account, all computer users in my house will be subject to the same level of internet filtering and accountability reporting.  This works for me, but may not for you.  Sometimes the best approach is one account for the children and one for the adults.  If you have more than one account, each account will have a separate login to use the internet.

There are two main functions of covenant eyes: Internet filtering and Accountability.  You have the option to use filtering, accountability or both.

The filter will block pornographic and questionable websites.  You can set the level of the filter based on the user as long as you set up separate user accounts.  You may also specify websites to always block or always allow.  This is great if you like a stricter level of filter, but want to allow one or two sites that would normally be blocked at that filter level.  The filter also gives you the ability to allow a user to access the internet at certain times of the day and for a certain total amount of time.  This works especially well if you want to limit the total time spent on the internet or prevent late night internet surfing while they should be sleeping!

Get your FREE 30 Day Trial of Covenant Eyes.

The accountability part of the software will log all of you visited websites.  This report is available to both you and your accountability partner on the internet through covenant eyes’ website.  Covenant eyes scores each site you visit.  The scoring is done in real time and scans a web page before it loads.  A low scoring site means it is harmless, but a higher scoring site means you might want to take a look into what it is.  Your report will only list higher scoring sites to keep the report useful and to not alarm the user.  A summary at the top of the report will tell the user at a glance whether there was anything to be concerned about for the reporting period selected.  Your accountability report will also list any questionable searches performed.  If someone was inquiring about ‘bikini photos’ they would be listed on this report.

One unique feature of covenant eyes is the panic button.  The panic button is available for the user to click in case they are overcome with the urge to view pornography or something else on the internet.  The panic button will disable your internet and forbid any websites to load until you can call the Covenant eyes hotline and have them turn it back on.  This is a great feature that allows someone to calm down and come back down to reality before returning to the internet.  If temptation is too much for you to handle the panic button is there for you.

My overall feelings about covenant eyes are positive.  The only downside in my opinion is that pages take an extra second or two to load up, but when I consider the benefits and think back to the days of dial-up, I can accept this.  I really like the adjustability of the filter, the accountability reporting and the panic button.  I highly recommend paying the monthly fee for both filter and accountability services.  The accountability report is much better than X3Watch because of the ranking system and the fact that a complete log of sites can be reviewed.  The filtering is very flexible and allows you to police the use of the internet far easier than other ways.  I feel that my kids and I are protected well from obscenities.  The accountability report is an added layer of protection should my wife or I become tempted to visit a website we would not want the other to know about.

Get your FREE 30 Day Trial of Covenant Eyes.

 

 If you haven’t already, be sure to sign up for my email course on tips/tricks to optimize covenant eyes – See here

Disclosure statement – I whole heartedly recommend covenant eyes and if you sign up, I will receive a small commission.  These commissions help to support this website and all of it’s content & help it provides.  Thank you. 


Saavi Accountability Software Review

internet accountability software

Update: Saavi Accountability was recently acquired by Covenant Eyes, Inc.  please refer to my review of Covenant eyes

 

Occasionally I will be asked to review a new tool for accountability, but mostly I find them on my own.  In this case, I was approached by the CEO of Saavi to take a look at their accountability software.  I was kind of hesitant to present another product to my readers, but now I feel it can’t hurt to let you know of another tool.

Accountability software is meant to record and report your online activity to an accountability partner.  Knowing that someone has access to your website visits, it helps you to stay away from whatever it is that you struggle with.  Saavi Accountability software can be set up to notify your accountability partner when you hit on a site that deals in Gambling, Games, Hate, Sexually Explicit, or Violence.  These are the general categories that will generate an email or text message to your partner.

Saavi software can also alert your accountability partner to certain applications such as file sharing, games or VOIP.  You can also set the software to catch keyword phrases if you have problems with vices such as drinking or drugs.

I installed the software on a laptop computer then configured the standards online.  I also input my cell number and email account for notification, but these will be assigned to your accountability partner.  Now it was time to test the software.

My first test was to go to Google to do a few searches.  My first search was for ‘porn’.  Within a minute I received a text message stating that the named computer had looked at google.com which contained the flagged keyword ‘porn’.  Wow, that was quick!  I also received an email right behind the text message.  To prevent any temptations, I limited the rest of my test to normal usage.

I checked my email, logged into this site, and did some internet searches.  I received 3 more text messages.  The software flagged pornography and porn.  I guess my own website can trigger an alert, but the good thing is you can see the context of which the word was found.  In my alerts, I saw that my email triggered the word and also this website.  Nothing to be concerned about here.

So I went back to Saavi’s online dashboard and looked at the reports.  The reports are top notch!  You see the email alerts and text alerts that were sent.  You can also see what videos were watched and what searches were performed and where.  If your computer has multiple users set up you can see which user watched the videos, did the searching or visited questionable sites.

One thing I must mention is that you need to configure the standards along with your accountability partner.  I found that the MSN homepage has the word ‘porn’ embedded in it somewhere and I would get an alert every time someone in my house hit the MSN homepage.  There is a simple fix to work out these types of bugs on the control panel by either rating the site safe or adding the site to your do not scan list.

In conclusion, I think Saavi Accountability software is very good if you want to be accountable for your internet activity in regards to pornography addiction.  The best part of the software is the instant alerts to your accountability partner to get instant help in time of temptation.  The reporting is simple and provides enough information to create discussions however often you and your partner get together.  The only sticky part of Saavi is working out the bugs like I had to with the MSN homepage, but that is minor all things considered.

I can whole heartily recommend Saavi Accountability Software because it simply works well.  You can purchase Saavi and download it instantly by going to SaaviAccountability.com.  Please mention Battleplan in the promotion code box to help support my website.  Thank you.

 Related Articles:

Review of Covenant Eyes Accountability Software

Supernatural lifeguard whistles and who is watching

The supernatural lifegaurd of the Holy Spirit
lifeguard whistles

Who is watching You?

Where is a lifeguard when you need one?  Lifeguard whistles

If you are searching to buy a lifeguard whistle, please find a nice selection of them here- lifeguard whistles Otherwise, keep reading 🙂

My family and I just came back from one of those indoor water park resorts.  We had a great time together and did plenty of swimming.

These types of places are filled with people, pools and lifeguards.
There are lifeguards everywhere you turn whether you go on a water slide or wade in the wave pool.  They do an excellent job of whistling people away from unacceptable behavior and unknown dangers.  Their job is to make sure you are safe and don’t do anything stupid to hurt yourself.

One thing I noticed with my kids is that they would look to the lifeguard every time the whistle blew.  A few times it was for them, like when they were doing handstands on the bottom of the pool.  Most of the time it was for someone else that was getting to close to the edge or to close to the buoys where the wave machine works.

The lifeguards were watching everyone swim and would not let you get away with breaking a pool rule.  My kids would do something and then look up to the lifeguard to see whether it was ok to do it.  Once they found out that handstands were not allowed they didn’t try to do them again.  They love handstands, but the lifeguards were always watching and they did not want to get busted.

When we are tempted to look at pornography, where is the lifeguard ready to blow the whistle on us?  Believe it or not, there are lifeguards to keep us from sinning.  One of them is called our conscience.  Right before you click on that button to look at pornography, your conscience tells you to stop.

Another very similar lifeguard is the Holy Spirit which will do the same thing and urge you to run.  Hopefully you can still hear your conscience or the Holy Spirit as they blow the whistle and tell you to stop.  If you cannot hear them anymore, you have crushed these warnings long enough that you can’t hear them!  You are ignoring them and need to slow yourself down to recognize them again.  Remember that the eyes of The Lord are everywhere and while you think no one else can see you, He can!

Other lifeguards are the ones that we set up for ourselves.  Internet filtering programs such as Covenant Eyes or X3 watch will serve as a lifeguard when you get tempted.  There is also a program that will text your accountability partner when you start hitting websites that suggest you are ready to fail.

Some other practical lifeguards are locking out certain cable channels, keeping your computer in a public place, not allowing or getting yourself out of perfect storm situations, and calling your accountability partner to share your temptations with them.

Don’t allow yourself to even come close to drowning in pornography.  You must heed the natural and supernatural lifeguards in your life.  Don’t forget to set up some other practical lifeguards in your life as well.  When you do these, it will be much harder to harm yourself and fall prey to the satan and his schemes.

Is Free Internet Filtering Software any Good? – OpenDNS Review

open dns review

OpenDNS Review – filter your entire network

When you see ads for free internet filtering software you are skeptical as I am.  What is the catch? Am I downloading spyware?

I have been using Open DNS now for about six months and have decided to let you know about my experience with it.  Let’s first look at what Open DNS is and how it works.

Open DNS is an online filtering service and nothing is installed on your computer.  You will not experience any difference in your internet speed.  Open DNS works by editing a few settings in your modem or router.

Your modem or router contains internet settings that you can access through your internet browser by typing in the IP address.  Your modem or router will have a sticker on it that says: IP address 192.08.01.1 or something similar.  You type this into the address bar and you can alter your settings.  Within these settings are your DNS settings.  You will modify these DNS settings to those supplied by Open DNS.

Your DNS settings or domain name server settings link to a server which returns a website every time you type in a website name.  When you want to go to Ebay, you type in Ebay.com and the request is sent to the DNS which translates that request into the IP address of Ebay which could be 192.08.01.1.  DNS servers allow you to use domain names instead of IP addresses to access websites.   You can see how much easier it is to remember names instead of number sequences for websites.

Open DNS takes your website request and returns either the website, or a blocked domain page based on the content filter level you choose.  Your website request is checked against a database of domains that are categorized by content.  There are over 50 Content categories which include: pornography, Adware, drugs, gambling, nudity, and much more.  You can choose filtering levels that are predefined or make a custom level where you choose which content categories to block.  All of your filter settings and reporting are done online through the Open DNS dashboard.

Block Websites by Category

 

Open DNS also logs all the internet sites that are accessed or were attempted to access.  This is all stored online so there are no logs to delete on your computer by someone who is trying to erase their tracks.  You can quickly see if anyone tried accessing anything that you have blocked by category.

Your Websites Visted Log

Your Websites Visted Log

We use Open DNS on our home network.  My home network consists of three desktops and occasionally a laptop.  All the computers that access the internet in my home are subject to the Open DNS filter because my DNS settings are made through my router.

I have been very satisfied with this free internet filtering service.  I use the free service which stores two weeks in your log and does everything I want it to do to keep the filth off my computers.  Most of my blocked websites deal with Adware or Phishing threats according to my log.  I also get to see what sites my family has visited without looking at each computer’s browser history.

Here are the advantages and uses for Open DNS:

  • It is Free
  • It doesn’t run on your computer to slow it down or uninstall it by others
  • You can create a custom filtering list to filter what you don’t want on your computers
  • The online log will show you all the domains visited by any computer on your network and cannot be erased or hidden locally.
  • You can block image searches in Yahoo & Google.  Pornography is rampant in the image searches.
  • Do you suspect your husband or teen is accessing pornography but you can’t prove it? Use Open DNS and password protect your modem or router settings.  This way they cannot turn off the filtering from the Open DNS dashboard or temporarily change the DNS server settings to view Pornography.

The disadvantages and weaknesses of Open DNS:

  • It is not accountability software.  Accountability software reports your website access to your accountability partner.  This is set up by you and you will hold the passwords to control the content and is easily disabled by you.  Unless you give the router & Open DNS passwords to someone else to control, it will not keep you accountable.  Use this along with accountability software.
  • Be sure to password protect your modem or router.  If your router settings are not protected, someone who is a bit tech savvy will be able to get around this filter.
  • This does not block video searches in Google or Yahoo.  There may be another category such as video sharing that takes care of this, but pay attention to your logs.

 

Bottom line: This filter is a great alternative to software you have to pay for.  In fact, I think this is better than most of the paid software.  This is the first line of defense to protecting you and your family from internet pornography.  You need to be vigilant by checking the site logs and using accountability software as well.  We are ultimately responsible for keeping our family and ourselves pure online.