Today, more kids are using computers, phones, tablets, and pretty much anything else with a screen. It feels like the natural order of things anymore, which is why having some kind of way to control their activity is more important than ever.
Parental controls are nothing new, and we’ve covered Microsoft Family Safety for Windows 8.1, as well as the simple controls on Windows 7. If you’re simply looking to restrict access to the Internet, then OpenDNS works nicely, particularly if you have a hybrid network of various software platforms.
It is that hybrid part that trips up many parents because a lot of people have Windows computers, but they don’t necessarily use them all the time. Android and iOS devices shoulder a vast amount of casual web browsing and Googling, among other things.
Google has made some strides in recent Android versions to address some of these problems. In Android version 4.2 they introduced user accounts and restricted profiles, which How-to Geek even covered. At the time, however, both were a tablet-only feature, leaving many Android phone users to seek other avenues. With the introduction of Android 5 Lollipop, however, anyone can now have multiple users, including guests, on their device.
Moreover, tablet users can still create restricted profiles for specific users in their household.
User Accounts Versus Restricted Profiles
Lollipop on the phone is a little different than Lollipop for tablets, but phones now at least will have the basic Users settings under the Device category.
When you open up the Users settings, it will just be You and the Guest account.
The nice thing about the guest profile is if you just want to give your little one a crippled, disposable account to play around with, then you don’t need to do anything else.
On the other hand, sometimes there’s that random human-in-need who asks to use your phone to make a phone call. If you tap on the settings gear next to guest and tap “allow phone calls,” then you can safely hand it off without giving them access to your personal dialer and its contacts.
Setting up a new user is as easy as tapping the aptly-named “add user” button.
New user account are supposed to be an attended setup, meaning the person for whom the account is intended should be there to supply their information. If you don’t want to set the user account up immediately, then you can tap “not now” or if you’re ready to go, tap “set up now.”
Android employs fast user switching so even if you are logged in with your account, your running apps and work won’t be closed or disturbed.
The new user setup will ask for some basic details like name and whether the person wants to use a Google Account.
Here’s a few things to keep in mind. If you’re setting up a simple non-destructive account for your child, then you can disallow phone calls (same as with the guest account), as well as SMS.
There’s nothing you can do to prevent the user from adding a device lock or a Google Account to access Play Store content, however, you can always remove the user as shown in the previous screenshot. Besides, if that’s something you’re concerned about, then you would be better off letting them just use the guest account.
Once you’ve got your user or users added, you can quickly switch between them by tapping the round user icon in the upper-right corner.
It’s pretty easy to figure out. Adding user accounts on Android 5 really isn’t intended to serve as parental controls. It’s more appropriate to instances where two or more adults need to share a device.
Restricted Profiles to the Rescue
Restricted profiles, on the other hand, do well as a basic parental controls option. If you’re using a tablet with Android Lollipop installed, then you can set up a restricted profile by tapping “add user or profile” button.
Notice, unlike the phone’s Add options, this tablet-based dialog gives us another choice for restricted profiles, in which you can “restrict access to apps and content from your account.” In other words, you’re the administrator and you decide what users can and cannot do.
Tapping the “restricted profile” option will give you a list of all the apps that are installed on your device. Almost everything is off by default. Note the small trashcan icon next to the user name in case you want to delete the profile.
For the sake of demonstration, we’ll enable the Amazon Kindle, At Bat, Beautiful Widgets, and Calculator apps.
You can open the new profile by tapping the name in the Users settings, or using the previously mentioned user icon from settings pane or the lock screen.
Restricted profiles are very much like guest accounts except that they’re not disposable, meaning it’s not reset every time you close it. Also, unlike the guest account, you can allow access to apps already installed on the device.
See, in the following screenshot, the only apps allowed are the Kindle, At Bat, and other apps we specifically toggled on. The Play Store, though it appears, will not work.
If you’re worried about a user having access to the settings, don’t worry, they won’t be able to do anything of importance. For example, if they open the Users settings from their restricted profile, all they can do is switch to another user or profile.
They can add a device lock, but it makes little difference, and if you are worried about your kids viewing adult content over the Internet, you can just employ the previously mentioned OpenDNS solution, or you can even use the basic tools included on your router. Like we said, the Play Store is disabled, and there’s no way to sideload an app (even if you decide to allow access to a file browser) because the development options are disabled.
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