Safes vs. Bark: Which is Better?
Parental control apps are apps that parents can use to restrict their children’s access to different settings or apps on their phones. 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 a lot of options to choose from, including Bark, Safes, FamiSafe, and Family Link. Since the two apps, Bark and Safes, are widely used, this article will do an extensive review of 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 keep them safer from online dangers. The Safes app works on Android, iOS, macOS, and Windows. Keep reading to find out what Safes offers and what you can do 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, their 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 are constantly worried 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: As you know, there are many websites that have inappropriate content, and children are likely to search for or come across them. The Website Blocker feature will help you block websites that are known for their inappropriate content by entering their URL. Additionally, you can block websites according to their category.
App Blocker: There are apps on kids’ phones that 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 keep track of how much time your child is spending on their screen and which apps they use the most. This feature can also help you put screen time limitations on your child’s device to keep them from overusing their device or becoming addicted to their screen.
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 many times they have left the town to go on a trip.
These are only a small number 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 its difference is from Safes.
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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 major 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 allows you to get notified as your child enters or leaves the places that you have previously defined. As an example, you will get a notification on your phone every time enters their school or sneaks out of the house at night. You can also use the Check-in feature and see the address of the place they’re currently at. This feature is similar to Safes’s Geofence feature, with the exception that Safes also offers live location tracking, which can be more useful if you’re trying to see exactly where your child is with pinpoint accuracy.
Website Blocking: Bark allows its users to block any website on their child’s device so as to keep them safe from inappropriate content online. This feature helps you block both 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, and there is no significant difference between them.
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 number of hours your child can spend on their device throughout the day and block access to their device 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 allows you to know exactly what your child is trying to access on their device and get additional insights into their phone activity. This feature automatically sends you 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, there are some major differences between the two. The two apps have location-related features, but Safes outperforms Bark because you can use live location tracking, which can be useful. With Bark, you have the option of blocking apps and websites, which is similar to Safes’s, but there weren’t any significant differences between them. The other feature that Safes has an advantage over Bark at is Manage Screen Time. Although Bark offers almost the same functionality with the exception that you won’t be getting 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: Two major parental control apps are Bark and Safes. Read this article to find out which is better for keeping kids safer online.