Kidoz – The Child-Friendly Web Browser

I’m sure I’m not the only parent that has let their child use the computer, turned their backs for a minute and then turned back to discover they have managed to navigate to the BBC News pages (or something worse). I’ve just stumbled upon Kidoz, a new web browser designed for kids, which could take the danger out of your son or daughter’s internet activities.

The user interface is bright and easy to use, as you would expect. There are three sections in Kidoz – websites, games and videos. It takes the “walled garden” approach, allowing the child to access only a handful of approved sites.  At this time this list of sites is fixed (but it is quite comprehensive) but they have informed me that future updates will include customisation and parental controls. Clicking on a link (each represented by a picture as well as the name of the site) opens up the site in a more traditional browser view.  The browser seems fully functional and all games and sites I tried worked fine.

The video section contains a hand-picked selection of videos (they all seem to be from YouTube, although I might be wrong), each spilt into a number of channels.  Clicking on a channel then gives access to the videos in that channel.  This works very well and I can see this being a big plus point of Kidoz.

The games section contains a handful of games that seem to be a little disparate, and this seems to be the least developed section of the program.  I’m sure in time they will add more games, and maybe categorise the games in a similar way to the video section.

All in all Kidoz is a very good system for providing a safe environment for children to experience the internet.  Although a child’s computer activity should be monitored, this provides an extra layer of security.

Try Kidoz here