Gaming/Virtual Reality: Club Penguin
Source: Tom's Guide US | Keywords: child, security, safety | Themes: Software
- 1. Kid Tested, Tom’s Guide Approved
- 2. Browsers: KidZui
- 3. Browsers: KidRocket
- 4. Browsers: Glubble
- 5. Browsers: TUKI Browser for Kids
- 6. Streaming Content and Activities: ZuiTube
- 7. Streaming Content and Activities: ActivityTV
- 8. Gaming/Virtual Reality: Club Penguin
- 9. Gaming/Virtual Reality: WoogiWorld
- 10. Content Blocker: Livia Web Protection
- 11. E-mail: Zoobah
- 12. More on this topic
8. Gaming/Virtual Reality: Club Penguin
Cost: Free without membership, $5.95 for monthly membership, $29.92 for 6 months, and $57.95 for annual membership
Disney’s uber-popular Web destination for kids is less a browser or security tool and more a trendy hang-out for budding Web enthusiasts. Relying on its policies for play, which include no bullying, swearing, talking about drugs, or cheating on the games, it also discourages kids from sharing their real personal information and instead opts for penguin avatars to provide an online alternate reality and identity.
Club Penguin asks kids to create a user name (not their real names), a password, and a penguin color. Once an adult confirms the child’s permission to join and has set up the child’s chat permissions, the kid is set to play. Chat permissions come in two forms: Ultimate Safe Chat, which limits conversation to predefined greetings and responses, and Standard Safe Chat, which lets kids type their own sayings and is moderated for safety.
Once a penguin is created and activated, a child can now access his or her choice of servers. At a glance, kids can see how many people are playing on a server and if ultimate safe chat is available there. Wandering around the world of Club Penguin, kids can play games at each stop and earn coins to furnish their personal “igloos,” buy Halloween costumes, or just upgrade, tweak, and style the Penguin experience. Of course, like any online virtual world, other kids are hanging out waiting to chat as well. Kids can click on any of these other players and choose to add them as a friend, send a message, ignore them, or report them to the administrators for misbehavior.
And who can pass up the option to toss snowballs at any other player for a bit of winter fun? Is this Club Penguin’s home wholesome version of Facebook’s “poke”?
With so many added features available for paid members, it will be difficult to keep your young ones from begging for upgrades. Special “head-of-the-line” privileges for the online parties, exclusive games, and bragging rights for many of the activities will make it hard for parents to say “no.” Luckily, Club Penguin gift cards are available at major retailers like Wal-Mart, Toys "R" Us, and Target.
Club Penguin isn’t going to keep young kids from disassembling your “My Documents” folder or opening a new window to engage in shady online business. But it can teach them about responsible online communication with others, how to practice the best Internet safety practices, and the right way to play checkers. Popular for a reason, it’s a number-one destination for kids worldwide.
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Nicely written-- I like seeing Tom's branch out into a variety of interest areas, even if they arent thrilling.
What i miss in this topic is, how does the Microsoft Parenting control stand out to these programs.
I hope the 12 year olds read this after they get back from school.
What i miss in this topic is, how does the Microsoft Parenting control stand out to these programs.
Thanks for the question mkrijt. Linsey Knerl offers these comments about Windows and other OS parent control tools: "While they had some good features, (like site blocking, permissions requests, time-limits, etc.) it was hard to integrate over several different computers. It also didn't lock down the browser so kids couldn't escape and mess up your desktop folders.
One major complaint to the operating-system based tools that Apple and Microsoft offer, is that they want to tie everything back into your Windows Live or Apple accounts. (So if my 3-year-old wants to have a special collection of websites that he can access on our computer, I'd have to set him up for a Windows account that the computer can access and associate with his preferences.) I'm not a huge fan of having to have my kids set up as "accounts", which is why I like the independently-developed tools. They usually just need me to assign a name and password for my kid, and it isn't stored in my PC.
Another disadvantage to the OS based options is that they aren't practical for multiple environments. Let's say little Johnny has security settings at home all set up, but then wants to go to Grandma's to play games. I'd have to go to Grandma's and find out how her operating system works, and if it isn't the same as what we have, I'd have to reset all the settings on her system. (A lot of work.) With independent browsers, we just download on Grandma's PC, and the web-based settings automatically take effect.
Basically, there's no easy way to use the OS based browsers between machines that are not using the same OS."
Wonderful article. very objective and informative. Thanks for writing it. Good articles like this give me hope for Toms... it's almost funny to me that before I knew who wrote this I assumed it wasn't Marcus Yam because it was actually helpful and intelligent. Linsey Knerl FTW
If children at the age of 3 know those words already then they need more help than what software can do.
But anyways it's not like young kids enjoy watching porn or anything like that. Most kids don't go on very many sites, and site blockers are probably the worst thing ever created. At school we can't even use google images on school projects.
Wouldn't OpenDNS be better for blocking sites? It does so at the "source" rather than having to install a program on everyone's machines. I block all DNS queries and then explicitly allow OpenDNS servers with filtering set to moderate. Works like a charm, no adult content for anyone using anything on my internet connection. And it's FREE for home users!!!
The internet is a place for adults. Do you leave your child in a room with an adult you do not know?
DON'T leave the child alone on the net.
Nice article, it would be a nice thing to do for every OS in the market to adopt the tendency of adding one of these browsers as option for the little ones.
Most parents are not really aware of what internet means, just because they don't care about the non-4child content, or because they doesn't realize about how dangerous for a growing mind that content could be.
Many of us surfers of the web we actually don't pay attention to the stupid propaganda, sex adds and all that crap, because most of us know that those links will probably end up in some weird site asking for personal data, etc.. etc.. etc.. KIDS CAN NOT TELL IF IT'S GOOD OR BAD! THEY JUST CLICK ON IT.