Safes vs. Bark: Which is Better?

Parents can use Parental control apps to restrict their children’s access to different phone settings or apps. Parents feel the need to use parental control apps mainly because there’s a lot of inappropriate content online that can harm children in different ways. According to numerous studies, being exposed to age-inappropriate content in children can cause ADHD or aggression in the long term.

This is highly concerning, especially when your child is below the age of 13 and highly susceptible to having their nervous system damaged by too much dopamine. As for parental control apps, you have many options, including Bark, Safes, FamiSafe, and Family Link. Since the two apps, Bark and Safes, are widely used, this article will extensively review them and answer the question, “Which is better? Safes or Bark?” 

Safes Parental Control App

The Safes parental control app is somewhat new, but it’s gaining popularity among parents with young kids. This app helps you set numerous parental controls on your child’s device to protect them from online dangers. The Safes app works on Android, iOS, macOS, and Windows. Keep reading to discover what Safes offers and how to keep your children from ADHD and aggression. 

Features

Geofence: This feature allows you to set green zones around your child’s most commonly visited places – home, school, friend’s house, etc. In the green zone, your preferred parental controls will be applied automatically. You will also receive notifications on your phone whenever your child enters or leaves the green zone. 

Live Location: Many parents constantly worry about their children’s whereabouts during the day. Safes offers a live location tracking feature that helps you keep track of your child all day. Additionally, you will get detailed daily reports of where they went throughout the day. 

Website Blocker: Many websites have inappropriate content, and children are likely to search for or come across them. The Website Blocker feature will help you block websites known for their inappropriate content by entering their URL. Additionally, you can block websites according to their category. 

App Blocker: Some apps on kids’ phones can expose them to inappropriate content. By blocking their access to these apps, you can make sure they aren’t in danger of getting exposed to porn, violence, or strong language. 

Screen-time Monitoring: The Screen-time Monitoring feature allows you to track how much time your child spends on their screen and which apps they use the most. This feature can also help you limit screen time on your child’s device to prevent them from overusing it or becoming addicted to it. 

Driving Report: The Driving Report feature is best suited for parents whose kids are of driving age. This feature will provide you with detailed reports of your child’s driving. You will know when your child goes beyond the speed limit. You will also get a report of how often they have left the town for a trip.  

These are only a few of Safes’s features, but you can find out more on Safes’s official website. The Bark app offers similar features but with minor differences. Read the next section to find out what Bark offers and what distinguishes it from Safes. 

Alt text: girl lying down and using her phone on which Safes or Bark is installed

Bark Parental Control App

Bark is a parental control app that has been around for some time and is one of the significant names among parental control apps. This app offers similar features to Safes and can be helpful if you’re trying to limit your child’s access to their device. Throughout the rest of this section, we will explain Bark’s features and compare their usage to Safes’s features. 

Features

Location Sharing: Bark helps parents keep track of their children in real time. This feature lets you get notified as your child enters or leaves the places you have previously defined. For example, you will get a notification on your phone every time you enter their school or sneak out of the house at night.

You can also use the Check-in feature to see the address of their current location. This feature is similar to Safes’s Geofence feature, except that Safes also offers live location tracking, which can be more helpful if you’re trying to see exactly where your child is with pinpoint accuracy. 

Website Blocking: Bark allows users to block any website on their child’s device to keep them safe from inappropriate online content. This feature helps you block URLs and categories. Furthermore, you can block YouTube’s website, turn on Safe Search on most search engines, and get reports on what your child has tried to access. This feature is almost identical to Safes’s Website Blocking feature, with no significant difference. 

Manage Screen Time: This feature allows parents to set screen-time schedules for different times, such as bedtime, family time, and school time. Using these profiles, you can limit the hours your child can spend on their device throughout the day and block access if they exceed their allowed time.

You can limit the number of apps they can use when each profile is activated and help them focus on their studies better with the screen time limitations. This feature is similar to Safes’s screen-time management, except you’re not getting daily or weekly reports of your child’s screen time usage. 

Monitor Content: The Monitor Content feature lets you know exactly what your child is trying to access on their device and get additional insights into their phone activity. This feature automatically sends notifications on your phone when your child gets exposed to inappropriate content or receives texts with hateful content or slang that they shouldn’t be exposed to. This feature is similar to Safes’s SMS logging, which notifies the parent when their child receives an inappropriate text message. 

Is Safes Better or Bark?

Throughout this article, we introduced the concept of parental control apps and why they’re essential to everyday parenting. Since parental control apps are gaining popularity, we introduced and compared the two apps to see which one is better. Although both apps have similar features, as all parental control apps do, some significant differences exist.

The two apps have location-related features, but Safes outperforms Bark because you can use live location tracking, which can be helpful. With Bark, you can block apps and websites, similar to Safes, but there weren’t any significant differences between them. The other feature Safes has an advantage over Bark at is Manage Screen Time.

Bark offers almost the same functionality, except you won’t get weekly or daily reports of your child’s screen activity. The last feature that we compared was Monitor Content. Safes outperformed Bark in this feature, too. As a whole, Safes provides your kids with the most online protection. 

Meta description: Bark and Safes are two major parental control apps. Read this article to find out which is better for keeping kids safer online.