How do I filter the Internet on my iPhone / iTouch?

A while back I noticed there was little in the way of filters parents could use on the iPhone or iTouch—and virtually nothing for other phones that aren’t considered smart phones, yet still have web browsers. However, last week I discovered a company that is offering a replacement web browser for Safari on the iPhone/iTouch.

Apple does have some parental control features built into their portable devices (and I’m assuming the iPad will offer something similar), but these options are still fairly basic. You can only turn certain apps, like Safari, on and off. There is no way to filter the Internet in real time.

Fortunately a company called Mobicip (just don’t ask me how to pronounce it) makes a replacement web browser for iPhone’s Safari that has built in content filtering. What that means is you can purchase their browser (through Apple’s app store for $4.99), install it on your phone and then disable Safari through the parental control features.

I haven’t tested Mobicip, but if one of you gives this a try, please use our comment link at the bottom of this article and tell us about your experience. Another app called “Safe Eyes Mobile” is available through the app store, but it costs $19.99 and doesn’t have very positive reviews. (We have used Safe Eyes for Mac in our home in the past with mixed results—it filters basic content just fine, but was clunky on OS X and is still lacking many essential features that are on the PC version.)

Now let’s hope some solutions for Internet filtering appear for the dozens of other phones out there!

More details about the movies mentioned in this post…