IAmBigBrother doesn't offer website blocking with its parental control software, which is rather odd given that it's one of the most requested things from any parental control/family filter.

Website blocking represents the actual "control" mechanism in parental control software.

In other words, it's good to know what your kid is up to online, but without website blocking what can you do about it?

Other software out there today allows parents to block sites they don't like, and even to block sites before, kids get a chance to see them based on trigger keywords, category lists and more.

This saves parents a lot of time, since they don't have to pore over websites and decide what to do about them - and offers peace of mind as well.

The lack of website blocking is definitely a disappointment with IAmBigBrother. We hope they'll remedy that in updated versions.

IAmBigBrother offers website monitoring, allowing parents to see what websites their child has accessed, but it doesn't do much else.

Parents don't have the option to block any sites, and can't tell how long their child spent on that site.

This makes it difficult for parents to know if their child has actually accessed in inappropriate site, or happened upon that site by accident.

Chat / Instant Message (IM) conversations are some of the most important things to monitor for most parents, which is why in our reviews of the best parental control software, we think of it as a "must-have."

Without the ability to monitor chat conversations, parents can be left in the dark about a large part of what their kids are doing online.

Some competing software like CyberPatrol, only provides chat blocking but no monitoring.

Our question about that is, how do you block effectively without monitoring first?

IAmBigBrother has a respectable chat monitor that records conversations in most popular Instant Messaging clients.

It also lists user names, so parents can easily see who said what. What we don't like is that there's no search function in the software to help parents zero in on things of concern.

Furthermore, if there are many conversations, which is quite common among teens in particular, you should be prepared to spend a lot of time clicking and digging through each of the chat conversations.

However, once again parents can't block Instant Messaging "friends," bad language, or even the clients themselves.

High on our list of important things for parental control software is email recording.

Perhaps not the most important thing, it is a feature we expect to find in the best software that is often absent from lesser parental controls.

Interestingly, even though IAmBigBrother omits some key features like website blocking, IAmBigBrother does capture emails.

IAmBigBrother grabbed all emails and attachments sent and received on the PC in question.

Its email monitoring is quite effective, and even includes capturing webmail accounts that kids might try to use to hide their messages from mom and dad.

Even though software keyloggers first came to notoriety as "password stealers," there's much more utility to good invisible keyloggers than just the ability to capture a password. (Although they do that, too.)

Software keyloggers are often the last line of defense in a parental monitoring program, providing parents a way to see what was typed in a web page, including ones with web-based chats (that otherwise would be missed by a chat monitoring utility).

Additionally, such keyloggers are the only solution for recording things that get typed and printed or otherwise sent to someone without ever being saved.

After all, how do you expect to read a document that's created and never saved, only printed, without a keylogger?

IAmBigBrother features an invisible keylogger that captures everything typed on your child's computer.

This is very useful when parents want to see the usernames and passwords their kids are using to access inappropriate sites and materials.

While functional, the keylogger itself leaves a lot to be desired.

Rather than separating keystrokes logged by program into separate locations, it's all logged in one window, where you have to sift and read through every bit of data the keylogger captured rather than being able to see things logically broken down by application.

If you're not concerned about their book report written in Microsoft Word and are only concerned about what they typed on AOL in a chat room, you still have to sift through one to get to the other.

Other parental monitors including WebWatcher, SpectorPro, and SpyAgent offer far better key loggers with more functionality and much better usability.

Because screenshots are among the most important thing for a parental control suite, we tend to be highly critical of software that's missing it.

Screenshots can help parents truly see what their kids are doing at their computer and online when they're not there.

There are few things as powerful for a parent as seeing the pornographic, violent, or other disturbing images on a child's computer.

While IAmBigBrother does take screenshots of all the pages and sites your child visits on their computer, it really has no means of organizing the results, which is unfortunate because it offers both timed and keyword-triggered screen capture, the two most important ones.

Regrettably, because it lacks a means to easily organize the screen captures, parents will find it tedious to look through everything their kid saw online.

It does help that IamBigBrother provides parents with thumbnails of images that link to webpage views, but even still, the screen capture's overall usefulness isn't what it should be.

Parents who have the time to check in on a daily basis might find it passable, but those who plan to check on the program's results every few days or so likely will find themselves inundated with data, and because of the nature by which the IAmBigBrother screen capture tool works, parents may even miss the most important things their kids do.

While it may not be as important as website monitoring or website blocking are for most parents, the ability to set computer time limits--particularly ones that are done on a program-by-program basis as the CyberPatrol usage limits are--is still an important part of the best parental control software.

IAmBigBrother doesn't offer computer usage limits for parents who want to know (and limit) exactly when their kids are using the computer and the Internet.

Computer usage limits are useful because parents can't always be sure when their older kids are logging on, or whether or not they're gaming, surfing the net, or just doing homework.

With computer usage limits parents can decide to lock down the entire computer for a time, or just the Internet.

This means that kids can't log on when parents are at work, running errands, or after bedtime. It also means that kids who are supposed to be doing homework or studying are doing exactly that, and nothing more.

This is an important tool that IAmBigBrother is lacking. Hopefully they'll add it to future releases.

Among the most important things for parental control software is remote monitoring.

Even if everyone in a family shares the same computer, remote monitoring means the recorded data is available from another computer if you need it.

You may only be out of the house at work or out of town for a night or two, but having the ability to keep an eye on things from anywhere can be a very big deal, especially if things start to get worrisome with what your kids are doing online.

While Parents can now take a look at what their kid is doing online from a remote computer using IAmBigBrother's new program, IAmBigBrother Remote, the tool really lacks the power of WebWatcher or eBlaster.

The interface is almost identical to the standard IAmBigBrother interface, so it suffers from the same shortcomings like having to dig and sift through what the keylogger records to get to items of interest.

While this could be a great tool for working parents or those who can't always be standing over their child's shoulder whenever they log online, it's hard for us to recommend, especially because it's $9.99 per month.

So, while IAmBigBrother itself positions itself as the most affordable parental control software programs on the market, after only a few months of paying for the remote viewing service the cost will be greater than that of the more sophisticated and pro-active software packages available today.

In parental controls, stealth and invisibility is something each family should be able to decide for themselves.

Sometimes parents want their kids to know they're accountable for what they do online and tell their kids they're being monitored online.

On the flip side of the coin, parents--particularly of older kids--sometimes need to be discreet to find out what trouble their kids may be getting into online and need a program that can run completely invisible to the user and report the activities to the parents.

We believe these types of decisions are best left to the parents to decide for themselves.

In the case of IAmBigBrother, it offers limited stealth.

It can't be seen in the Windows Task Manager or in the Add/Remove Programs list.

Another nice touch is that the stealth mode is on automatically, so parents don't have to remember to turn it on; however, we found it to be easily detectible with even basic antispyware and antivirus software, so if someone thinks they're being monitored, finding IAmBigBrother may not be terribly difficult as it is with some competing parental control software.

We wish we had more positive things to say about IAmBigBrother, but their tech support was a disappointment, too.

In fact, IAmBigBrother is definitely lacking in the tech support department.

Their website offers a short list of "support topics" for parents who need help. If your needs aren't met by that list, there's a "support ticket" emailing function that allows you to send an email with your problem.

However, there's no phone number to call, and no live chat function like many of the best parental control software companies have.

Busy parents might not have the time to wait for an email response, and today's complicated software systems can be downright confusing.

It's too bad there isn't a call center to rely on for those parents who need some extra help.

When it comes to protecting their kids online, parents are often willing to pay extra, so even if IAmBigBrother offered pay-as-you-go phone support, it would be better than nothing.

While IAmBigBrother can be very affordable for parents looking for parental control software, it's missing too many important features in our book.

First, there's no website blocking at all. None.

Parents can see what their kids are up to, but they can't do anything about it.

This goes double for Instant Messaging conversations.

There are no other filtering goodies like limiting computer usage or blocking bad language from chat rooms either.

The keylogger, while technically functional, is implemented weakly and requires too much effort to use to be as effective as it should.

And with very little tech support to speak of, IAmBigBrother doesn't offer much to help parents who to protect their kids from online dangers aside from showing them what kinds of dangers their kids are running into.

Some parents might be okay with just discussing Internet dangers with their kids after the fact, but for parents who want more options, and more tools to use when their kids log online, one of our other contenders is a better bet.