Despite having a higher price tag than most of its competitors, WebWatcher makes it to the top of our list of 2010's best monitoring software, offering the most complete set of PC monitoring tools we found.

At its most basic it can function as an easy-to-use, highly effective website monitoring and website blocking tool (it's rare for one product to do both), but we found it can do quite a bit more than just a simple website monitoring and blocking.

It can also secretly capture emails, record chats, and take snapshots of what's on the monitored PC's screen. And, yes, it can even steal passwords for you with its built-in keyloggger software so you can be sure what's happening on the computer you're monitoring.

What intrigued us most though was that it did this all remotely, which means once we'd installed it, we never went back to the PCs we were monitoring to view the data that had been recorded.

Features are one thing of course, but how well does WebWatcher actually work?

Very well. In our testing, installation on our test lab PCs went smoothly, after which WebWatcher did what we expected it to, monitoring, recording, and blocking as intended--all without once revealing itself to the person being monitored.

We were pleased to see that because of the way WebWatcher runs (as a true hidden process), WebWatcher didn't show up anywhere in Windows Explorer, the registry, task manager, process list, or any other place(s) where savvy computer users might look.

Read on for more on why we rated it #1.

$97.00  (Regular price: $169.95)

We found SpyAgent's computer monitoring tools to be among the best we tested.

While perhaps not as polished as competitors like WebWatcher, it still delivers on its promise: recording what's happening on the computer you're monitoring.

It boasts a nifty built-in keyword-activated keylogger, screenshots in a "movie-like" format, and better than average stealth.

The main drawbacks are its somewhat dated interface and the lack of a built-in website block list, which means if you need website blocking, you'll mainly do so after-the-fact.

If website monitoring is your main concern, not website blocking, SpyAgent is a great choice. If you need website blocking software, though, there are better tools for that like WebWatcher, Net Nanny, and CyberPatrol.

Whether or not you need this type of website blocking is an important consideration in what computer monitoring software you choose. If you're never going to use more advanced website blocking (or any website blocking at all for that matter), why pay for it?

In that case, SpyAgent could be a great choice.

$69.95

Save $20.00 on SpyAgent (Over 22% Off)

This year with tougher competition than ever, Spector Pro comes in with solid placement on our list of computer monitoring software.

Don't get us wrong, Spector Pro is solid computer monitoring software and parental control software.

All of its monitoring features are strong and effective. Spector Pro can monitor everything from websites visited, to chats, to emails, to keystrokes, and more, as we'd expect a top-tier monitoring application to do.

The main thing we didn't like about Spector Pro is that it doesn't attempt to filter out any inappropriate content, it doesn't filter but only monitors and blocks web sites.

According to Spector Soft, they don't filter web content because they say filtering isn't as effective as monitoring, recording, then blocking inappropriate sites after the fact.

We think some--if not most--parents want to be more proactive when it comes to online safety and website blocking.

Additionally, for you to get remote access to the recorded data, you've either got to be on the same network as the computer you're monitoring or add on eBlaster, effectively making it the most expensive software of its kind.

$99.95  (Regular price: $169.95)

eBlaster, another computer monitoring program by SpectorSoft, comes in behind its sister product Spector Pro.

At first glance, they may seem to be functionally identical software; however, eBlaster has two significant differences from its sibling:

no screenshots all reports are emailed to you

Compared to Spector Pro, other than screnshots, eBlaster is just as powerful when it comes to full-scale computer monitoring, and equally easy to use and install.

You can block unwanted sites, monitor all sent and received emails/chats, capture keystrokes, and much more.

One major area where eBaster departs from Spector Pro is in the reporting. eBlaster can email reports to you anytime the PC you're monitoring is being used improperly. With Spector Pro, you need to revisit the PC to read the detailed reports.

Aside from whether or not you view emailed reports as a pro or con, the only major drawback for eBlaster is there are no screenshots taken.

In contrast with Spector Pro or WebWatcher, you can easily view a kind of "movie" of screenshots to see exactly what's being viewed on the PC.

$99.95  (Regular price: $169.95)

We're pleased to report the latest offering from CyberPatrol shows considerable improvements over last year's version.

Having surpassed several other products to make the final cut of software we reviewed, CyberPatrol is in heady territory to be among the top five this year.

CyberPatrol 7 is easy to install, and features good quality, standard PC monitoring tools for parents who want to solid parental control software, including keylogging, website filtering, time limits, and IM/chat blocking and filtering.

For employers who want to monitor their employees there may be more robust solutions via WebWatcher or Spector Pro, but CyberPatrol does provide an easy out-of-the-box solution that many people will find refreshing.

It does leave out some of the more sophisticated monitoring tools like screenshots, email monitoring and remote viewing so its features aren't as complete as its top competitors, but overall it's a decent product for parents and even businesses looking for an easy solution.

$39.95

While Net Nanny is designed with parents in mind, it's also useful in cases where you'd want to monitor someone else's use of a computer.

Net Nanny is strong in Internet filtering, but also has good parental controls like time scheduling, IM logging, and site blocking.

Net Nanny was the first consumer internet filtering software way back in 1994, so they've had lots of time and experience to get things right.

There were some bumpy releases along the way, but this version is solid.

Recently purchased by ContentWatch in 2007 (another good computer monitoring software company), Net Nanny retains all of its original power, along with ContentWatch's expertise at more advanced filtering.

$39.99  (Regular price: $39.99)

IamBigBrother has been around since the early days of parental control software.

It was once a unique and innovative program that offered parents a way to monitor their child's PC with some level of reliability.

Those days are gone.

Regrettably, IamBigBrother has fallen off the radar of most users.

The software developers at IamBigBrother have let their once innovative software be pretty badly outpaced by the competition.

IamBigBrother still performs basic parental controls, and has had a new facelift, but the overall effectiveness just can't compete with more parental control software.

Hopefully with future releases IamBigBrother can regain some of its former glory. In the mean time though, we find it hard to recommend this over better, more modern computer monitoring software.

$29.99