It's easy to think of YouTube as a brilliant resource if you've got a family to look after - with the number of videos on the platform, there's limitless entertainment and even educational resources to be found.
However, there's also loads of content you wouldn't want your kids watching, including videos and channels that might be innocent, but which could easily get your kid relatively addicted to the format, and wanting to watch all the time.
On top of that, YouTube parental controls aren't necessarily as watertight as you'd like by default. That's where an app like Famisafe can come in, to make your life way easier. It lets you really easily control what your kids can access, to make sure that they don't find anything untoward.
Anyone who's tried to set up iPhone parental controls, or indeed tried to use Google's parental controls on Android, has likely found that while they seem simple, things can often slip the net and get through. That's even more the case given how tech-savvy most youngsters are - if a streamer's videos on YouTube are locked behind an age-gate, you can bet they'll find a way around it.
You can use Google's own Restricted mode to limit what your kids can access, and this will go a long way to help, but Famisafe lets you go into way more detail and make sure you know what the kids are up to, alongside other great features.
The app lets you see every video that your child has watched, including any likes or comments they've made, and you have the option to block any video or channel you're concerned about, to make sure that they can't continue consuming nasty or addictive content. You can also really easily limit their screen time so that they can only watch a certain amount of video content each day, something that's really helpful to combat addiction.
The best part of Famisafe, though, is that it's a total parental control system, not just intended for YouTube but for wider uses. You can use it for iPhone parental controls, where it's powerful enough to track your child's location in real time, letting you make sure you know where they are. If there are certain locations you want to make sure they avoid, you can geo-fence these so you're alerted if they go there - this can also mean that you get a notification when they're home from school, for example.
Of course, Famisafe also works as an Android parental control app, in case you're not in Apple's ecosystem, and on both platforms you can limit their screen time, block apps or websites to ensure they can't use or visit them, and even have the app watch their camera roll to make sure no inappropriate content is detected in it, whether it's violence or adult material.
Wondershare, which created Famisafe, is so confident in it that you can use it for a week and get your money back no questions asked if you didn't like it, as a great way to see if it impresses you enough. Once you decide to take the plunge and take out a membership for good, you'll discover that the pricing is really reasonable, too, which ensures that it's affordable to protect your young ones.
You can pay $9.99 each month to cover 5 devices, or $60 a year to boost that up to 30 devices and cover everything in your home, we'd imagine. You can even pay $19.99 each quarter, if you prefer.
You can download the app on Android through the Google Play Store here, or through Apple's App Store for iOS here. Amazingly, there's even a version of the app for Amazon's Fire platform, which many competitors can't offer - you can download that here. That means that all of your mobile devices can easily be covered by a Famisafe membership, whether they're an iPad, an iPhone, an Android device or an Amazon Fire tablet.
Really, we can't recommend taking action highly enough - too many parents are either unaware of what their kids get up to online, or don't know how to take control over the matter. Simply taking the time to turn on some of the parental features offered by the likes of Google and Apple is a big step, but going further and using something like Famisafe can make a real difference.
This can also extend to their actual web browsing, letting you have parental control over browsers like Chrome and Safari, to make sure that it's not just apps and platforms like YouTube that are gated, but the actual web itself.
No one likes to think of their child seeing inappropriate content online, but with the help of Famisafe you can make sure that yours is safe - that's a guarantee we like the sound of.