December 9, 2011

UK ISP Provides Free Parental Controls

Virgin Media released a new update of its Virgin Media Security software suite, to include parental controls in addition to its existing protections against viruses, spyware and ‘phishing’ scams. Virgin Media is the first UK ISP to provide security software free of charge to every customer – regardless of their broadband tier.



Virgin Media Security is delivered by Radialpoint and powered by Trend Micro’s ‘Titanium’ cloud-based anti-malware technology. It stops threats in the cloud by taking advantage of Trend’s Smart Protection Network that monitors the Web around-the-clock, gathering and analyzing threat data from across the globe, blocking viruses and other malware before they reach customers' home computers.

Previously provided at no extra cost for customers of Virgin Media’s ‘L’ broadband package and faster, now all four million Virgin Media broadband customers can take advantage of free Parental Controls. Parents can either choose protection for their family from predefined levels of protection based on age groups, or tailor settings to enable or disable certain categories of websites as desired. Parental Controls also allow users to block Web access at certain times of the day (e.g. during homework) or restrict browsing to specific sites, such as social networks, to specified hours.