Protect your children online

Create a safe online environment for your children. Learn how you can manage screen time, filter content, and protect your kids online with the best parental control app.

Digital natives need to learn digital safety skills

Children today may be digital natives, but do not inherently know how to use the web safely and responsibly. It is our job as parents to guide and protect them. Digital safety skills will benefit children through­out their lives and let them enjoy the good parts of the internet. These skills will also keep them safe from the dark side of the online world — inappropriate content, cyber bullying, screen addiction, and cyber threats, such as malware and phishing.

How to succeed in digital parenting

Digital parenting means setting boundaries, guiding and supporting your children. Just like in real life. For parents who grew up in a different world, protecting children in the quickly evolving digital environment may feel challenging. The good news is that you do not have to know all the latest apps or technology trends. What matters more is that you are available and show interest. Since being present all the time is not possible, take advantage of malware protection and parental control technologies in keeping your children safe.

A quick guide to digital parenting

1. Educate and support

Children need boundaries, but too strict limits can cause resistance and do not teach kids to judge for them­selves. Encourage open communication and be a good role model your­self. Explain why you set certain rules. Ensure that your children dare to talk about scary or disturbing things they might encounter online without having to worry about getting in trouble.

2. Define online rules together

Every family is different. Draft your family’s digital rules together, so that every­one will be motivated to follow them. Define the times, when devices can be used, which apps can be down­loaded or purchased, what can be shared online, as well as what is the right balance of online and off­line activities.

3. Monitor screen time

The internet has many positive sides, but excessive screen time may lead to physical inactivity, screen addiction and sleep problems. Recommended screen time varies by age. Agree on a suitable screen time for week­days and week­ends with your child. Set screen time limits and ensure a good night’s sleep by blocking usage of devices during night­time with a parental app.

4. Filter inappropriate web content

With a young child, gaming or watching shows together is the best option. But for older children, and when you cannot be present, use automatic content filtering to make sure your kids are not accidentally exposed to inappropriate content. With a parental control app, you can block web pages and filter adult content and other unwanted content categories from search results on your children’s devices.

5. Control app installations

Do you want to allow your children to install apps without your permission? Relaxed rules for down­loading games and in-app purchasing could cause unpleasant surprises on your credit card bills. Children could also end up down­loading apps that are not appropriate for their age. Reviewing installations is easy with a parental control app.

6. Respect age limits

Social media services have age restrictions for a reason, so consider care­fully if you decide not to follow them. Advise your youngsters to be careful about sharing information on their social media profiles. Chat option in apps that are popular among children could attract groomers and predators, who aim to form a relation­ship of trust to manipulate, sexually abuse or exploit their victims. Instruct your teens to watch out for warning signs and keep their personal data private.

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F‑Secure Total includes 3 apps to protect your family online

Malware protection and parental controls with screen time and web filtering

F‑Secure Internet Security, an award-winning anti­virus, protects all devices from malware and viruses. Use parental control (Family Rules) to keep your children safe from harmful content and moderate their screen time. Block dangerous web­sites and keep your money safe while banking or shopping online.

Privacy online and access to country-restricted content

With F‑Secure VPN, your family can enjoy your favorite streaming content while traveling or access country-restricted games and other online services. VPN makes connecting to all Wi‑Fi net­works secure and protects your privacy online.

Pass­word manager and online identity monitoring

F‑Secure ID Protection keeps your and your children’s pass­words and online accounts safe. You can access them easily from any device. ID Protection also sends alerts when your details may have been leaked online, which gives you time to prevent identity theft.

Total protects all your family’s devices

Total protects all your Android, iOS, PC and Mac devices with the same sub­scription. Add up to 25 licenses to your sub­scription for full online security on all your family’s devices. Follow the link below for full description of Total.

Read more and try for free

F‑Secure experiences

See how customers and experts feel about F‑Secure.

Customer reviews

5/5
I would definitely recommend this, especially to anyone who has children or youngsters at home.

Smartson product review 2021

5/5
A good protection with a simple interface. There are several useful features for families who want to set surfing times for their children. Good VPN service included. I feel safe with F‑Secure Total.

Smartson product review 2018

5/5
Good features for sharing the subscription within the family. The app to surf with VPN abroad is really good. It is also very simple and easy to use.

Smartson product review 2018

Recognitions

IT PRO
AV-TEST Top Product 04/2019
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YouTube

F‑Secure Connected Life

5K subscribers

Protect your identity

What happens to the data after a breach? Mikko Hyppönen, CRO of F‑Secure, explains what criminals do with stolen data, and how you can protect your identity.

View on YouTube

F‑Secure Connected Life

5K subscribers

How to hide my IP address?

Hiding your IP address used to be considered paranoid, now we just call it common sense. Four cyber security experts explain how to hide your IP address — and why.

View on YouTube

F‑Secure Connected Life

5K subscribers

What is phishing and how to protect your­self

We targeted children’s programming author and TED speaker Linda Liukas with phishing emails and social engineering. See how it worked, and how to protect your­self against phishing.

View on YouTube

Twitter

Adam Katz

@adamhotep

I use @FreedomeVPN by @FSecure because it offers security and privacy filters beyond the anonymity of an encrypted tunnel through a shared IP.

6:54 PM — Sep 15, 2021

Sebastian Storholm

@SStorholm

This is paid VPN but so far is the best one I’ve found and I pay for it yearly for quite some time. It has a 30 day fully functional trial. It’s name: “F‑Secure VPN”

12:51 PM — May 22, 2021

CryptoKnowledge

@CK113311

I’ve been using F‑Secure Total for the past three years on Windows PCs, Apple and Android phones. No issues. Excellent software with VPN included.

6:00 PM — May 24, 2020

News coverage

Wired

1 November 2021

Unlike most anti-virus firms who dabble in the world VPNs, Finland’s F‑Secure has fully committed to setting up its own infra­structure, rather than using someone else’s.Wired
Expert Reviews

14 May 2021

For me, though, the great appeal of F‑Secure Internet Security is the way it sticks to its core task and does it very well, with minimal system impact and at a price that’s hard to beat.Expert Reviews
techbuzzireland

13 July 2021

New F‑Secure VPN feature protects privacy and security on public Wi‑Fi.techbuzzireland

Online rules are family rules

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Security tips for parents

7 things to teach your kids about internet safety

Children and smart devices — tips for parents

Online rules are family rules — F‑Secure Internet Security

Frequently asked questions

Agree on rules for using the internet and digital devices together with the child. You can also use F‑Secure Total’s parental control feature called Family Rules, which protects children’s use of the internet. It automatically blocks sites that are inappropriate for children. It also prevents children from installing applications with­out parents’ approval. Family Rules allow parents to limit screen time to maintain a healthy balance.

F‑Secure Total includes Family Rules, and it also protects against malware and other security threats.

Online rules or internet safety rules are ground rules that should be agreed together with a child. The rules should clarify, what you can do online, how long you can use devices each day, when you can use devices, and so on. Set digital rules at the latest when your child receives their own phone. Digital devices and the internet are part of children’s daily lives, also in school, so it is a good idea to talk about the rules early.

Limiting screen time makes sense if devices threaten to distract the child from other activities. F‑Secure Total’s Family Rules allow you to control the use of your child’s phone in two different ways: with daily usage restrictions and at bed­time. These allow you to limit your child’s screen time and balance every­day life.

Read our detailed guide on how to set screen time with F-Secure Total.

Internet Security is an internet security suite that you can install on your computer, smartphone, or tablet. It comes with a wide range of features and works silently in the back­ground with­out slowing down your device.

Virus protection protects your device from programs that may steal personal information, damage your device, or use it for illegal purposes. By default, Virus protection handles all harmful files as soon as it finds them so that they can cause no harm. The software automatically scans your local hard drives, any removable media (such as portable drives or DVDs), and any content that you download.

Browsing protection helps you browse the internet safely by providing safety ratings for websites on your browser and blocking access to websites that have been rated harmful.

Banking protection adds another layer of security to prevent attackers from inter­fering with your confidential trans­actions and protects you against harmful activity when you access your online bank or make trans­actions online.

Internet Security also comes with a Parental control with which you can control when and for how long your child can use the device. On smart­phones and tablets, you can use the Parental control feature to block web­sites that contain inappropriate content. You can also use Application control to protect children from using new applications until you approve them.

F‑Secure ID Protection helps you protect your personal information, such as usernames, passwords, and credit card numbers by alerting you of breached online services that you are using and by giving you specific instructions on how to recover from the incident with minimum damage. All you need to do is to add the email addresses you use to log in to online services and it will monitor data breaches where your information might have leaked.

You also have a safe vault where you can store all your passwords and automatically fill those in when you log in to services in Chrome and Firefox web browsers.

VPN, or virtual private network, encrypts your connection to the internet. VPN creates a tunnel from your device to your VPN service provider’s network. Your internet traffic goes through this tunnel to the VPN server, and then to the website or internet service you are connecting to. This hides your real IP address, and makes it look like your web traffic comes from your VPN service provider’s network.