I REALLY want to get away from using all Microsoft products. My spouse and I use Linux but not for our kids just simply because I have yet to find anything that does what Microsoft Family does - being able to remotely set time limits, keep an eye on screen time stats, block websites and apps remotely, see what websites they’ve been using, etc.
So far I’ve found some disparate apps or methods that can do some of this. But our family situation is complicated, not least of which includes disability and special needs. So basically, yeah, I need to be able to spy on what my kids are doing on their computers but I don’t want Microsoft or any other companies being able to do that. I would like to be able to switch the kids laptops/PCs onto Linux as well, but again, the lack of remote parental controls or some sort of centralised access has been preventing that so far.
We don’t need a phone app, but would just really like some central place that we can do this from that respects privacy, isn’t trying to sell us yet more crap and is preferably FOSS.
That’s a tuff ask, and it’s been awhile since I looked.
My kids phone is Android, computer is Windows, and I couldn’t get away without Googles Family link.
The PC was easier. I use Pihole to primarily block ads, but it can also log DNS requests from my kiddos PC, and I use my switch to kill his internet. It’s a desktop and doesn’t have wifi. So it’s just a Ethernet cable to his room. Kill the port or unplug the cable for dramatic effect. Any OS he’s on he’ll have restrictions and monitoring as long as he doesn’t spin up a VPN or learn how to change the DNS host. But much to my dismay I don’t think he’ll ever love Linux, or networking.
The phone was harder. Android gives up a random MAC address so blocking him from wifi was difficult, and it didn’t matter anyway since he had cell service. Eventually I came to realize that if he’s in the Google ecosystem, I have to play with Google if I want parental controls on his phone. It sucked. But, again much to my dismay, he doesn’t seem to think a big company knowing literally everything about him matters all that much so… Whatever. Maybe I’m the one that’s crazy.
There are a number of apps for android to do the same, each with +/-s but the google one is prbabbly the most solid simply because it can get its hooks into the OS level where most others tey and do things via overlays or similar. One called MMGuardian is pretty solid though, if you set it up along side family link to remove the default messager you can actually force any text messages through the app to CC the parent, as well as white/blacklist phone numbers as I recall.