Windows XP Internet Issue

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u268642

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Hi All,

I'm concerned about my son and what he is looking at on the internet. He has become very secretive and has started to disable the internet at home so that no one else can go onto it. I am a bit of a computer moron and have no idea how he does this. Can anyone confirm if there is a simple way of disabling the internet so if you click on the internet icon nothing happens? When I have stood over him he seems to hover over the task bar and then does something but its too quick for me to see properly. If I cant sort this out i'll be cancelling the internet anyway but just hoped someone could give me some advice.

Thanks in advance

Andy
 
Welcome to the forum Andy,

You say when you click on the Internet Explorer icon, NOTHING at all happens? There's not really a simple way of doing that... You do know that you have to double-click on it, don't you? I assume that's what you meant you are doing, but I have no way of knowing your level of experience.

I would suggest you talk to your son though, depending on what age he is, about his internet usage, it may turn out to be a quicker way of resolving this issue..

[B.T.W. mods this is in the wrong forum as this is a software/general discussion issue]
 
sorry i looked for internet section and couldnt see one, tried talking to him about it but he just walks off, got in with some dodgy lot at school. Shall i post this in the other place incase someone has seen this done before? Oh also the double click thing was just within my limits ha ha
 
I've moved the thread for you now :)

There are lots of ways he could have stopped it from working, but it is strange that the icon does nothing. Try going to the run command on the start menu (or press windows key + r) and then run "iexplore". That should load up internet explorer manually.
 
No don't worry, the moderators will move the whole thread into the other forum for you.

Sorry about the double clicking thing, was just checking.

There are parental control programs that can be loaded onto the PC, that will automatically prevent access to the obvious sites for internet misuse, other members of the forum will be able to advise you as to what programs are the best,

When you say be got in with a dodgy lot at school, that makes me wonder how serious his internet misuse could be... Because what sort of internet activity invloves friends at school, unless it's music/DVD piracy or the like...

Is he of an age at which he would know how to do any kind of significantly bad activity on the internet, i.e. year 10+?

Have a look at this program, which will not block any sites but will tell you which ones he has been on (but only sites that have been visited AFTER you have installed the program):

Read about it: http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/esmsoftware/sspy.htm
Download it: http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/esmsoftware/surfspy.zip

Additionally, If you're willing to follow my instructions you can pull up a list of sites he has visited up untill now:

Click the start button, and click Run.

type 'cmd' (without the quote marks)

when the black box appears, type 'dir cookies' (without quotes) and press ENTER.

(If you all have different usernames to log on to the PC, you need to be logged on as your son when doing all this.)

A list of cookies will appear, cookies are like a ticket you get when entering a site, kind of like when you enter a car park. They are simply a text file in the format (e-mail address removed), where USERNAME is the name displayed in the start menu, and WEBSITE is the name af the website that was visited. It'll probably be obvious if it's a dodgy site. If it's not obvious, try visiting them yourself to see what they are.

If nothing appears, your son is wise to this trick and has deleted the cookies himself.

If an error appears, post the error message and I'll try and see why.
 
Thanks for moving it Ian.

Here is an example of what should be displayed in the black box:

cookies.png
 
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thank you again much appreciated. ill look into those things and get them installed. If any messages come up ill come back on this message.
 
You could try using Kaspersky Internet Security which comes with a Parental Control software.
This would enable you to decide what could be looked at & the amount of time spent on-line.
 
ONe of the best i came across was called Bigbrother

Allows you all the usual stuff like sites accessed and emails to be sent to your address with a full description of everything

even MSN, AIM and countless other instan messaging conversations to be logged and sent to you
 
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