Please be aware that the parental control features in the Mac OS do not allow the use (or access) of websites with URLs beginning with “https://”. Apparently, all SSL encrypted websites are blocked by the parental controls. This limitation is particularly troublesome when setting up a whitelist (list of acceptable websites) for children to use. For example, using the Google Mail (Gmail) website is impossible with the parental controls whitelist enabled as it blocks the https protocol used to access the Gmail website.
However, we still recommend the use of Mac OS parental controls to limit how much time (and when) users are allowed access on the computer, as well as what applications they are allowed to use.
This article has some good information on how to access and setup parental controls in Mac OS X. If you are using Mac OS parental controls with your family, please email us and let us know how the controls are working for your family. We are interested in any additional information (tips, recommendations) that can be used to better protect our families using Mac OS X systems.