Net Nanny: The Dangers of the Popular Content Blocker

With the ease that the Internet offers of accessing adult web sites, many parents seek out software that will block content they deem objectionable. There are many programs that claim to fill this need, but the most well-known one available is definitely Net Nanny. Net Nanny has features which allow a user to block pornography, chat sites, violent sites, hate sites, and more. Having a child who has been viewing sites inappropriate (as well as illegal) for her age, I decided to give Net Nanny a try.

After paying for and downloading Net Nanny version 6, I decided to test it out. I went on the program and entered my preferences. Once that was completed I decided to go on the internet to see if Net Nanny would indeed block the material I had selected. Only there was one problem: I couldn't access the internet any more. My home page would stop after loading about 10% and get stuck. I waited patiently, thinking this might be just because it is the first time accessing the internet and Net Nanny needed to perform some sort of initial scans. After several minutes, I shut down the internet and tried again. Same result.

My wife checked on the Net Nanny website and found that it is necessary to turn off any firewalls or antivirus programs before installing Net Nanny (it would have been nice if they had told me that before I installed it). So, I uninstalled and reinstalled it with firewalls and antivirus software disabled. Again I set my preferences on the program and again I tried to go online. Nothing had changed. I still couldn't access the internet. It was late and I couldn't call the help people, so I went to sleep and planned to call them the next day.

I got up the next morning and turned on my computer, planning to call the Net Nanny tech people to figure out what was wrong. But my computer wouldn't boot. I knew something was very wrong now and called the tech people. The tech person instructed me to restart the computer in safe mode, which I did. It still would not boot up. I asked the tech person what to do and her reply was, "I'm sorry, but there's really nothing I can do." I hung up on her.

After performing a system restore, I managed to get rid of Net Nanny off my computer. I had hoped all problems would end with its uninstallation. I was wrong. I could go on the internet, but clicking on any link that opened a second window shut down internet explorer every time. Eventually, internet explorer was shutting down after only a couple of minutes regardless of what site I was on.

Also, my download speed had dropped considerably since I had installed Net Nanny. I used to average around 200 kbs, but after downloading Net Nanny, my download speed crawled along at around 50 kbs. This continued even after uninstalling it. Frustrated, I downloaded a program called Perfect Optimizer, which was guaranteed to fix these sorts of problems. I can happily say that Perfect Optimizer performed brilliantly, and my computer is running at peak performance once again.

Is Net Nanny a piece of junk? I would say yes, but I am only one person. Consider instead Net Nanny's own web site, which describes a set of files that Net Nanny may install and require talking to a tech person to correct. How many programs inform you on their web site that you may have to call the tech people to (possibly) get the program to work in the first place? One would think that version 6 would have solved all the problems that versions 1 through 5 were plagued with. Apparently not.