Bark Parental Control Review: Pros, Cons And It's Alternative

The Bark Parental Control application was founded in the year 2015. This app focuses mainly on online threats to children, which they may receive through texting, social media, and different types of online communication. Bark Parental Control is relatively affordable and easy to use, as well. This application will help you monitor your child's behavior online. Before you use the Bark parental control app, what pros and cons should you know?

Bark Parental Control Application at a Glance

This simple-to-use application comes with many parental tools that will let you understand how your kid is developing in the virtual landscape. This app allows you to analyze and monitor substance misuse, text messages sent and received, post for bullying, sexting, depression, suicidal plans, and more. Bark app reviews will tell you that the application alerts you right away when it views flagged text, posts, photos, or emails. Along with these alerts, Bark parental control app also suggests ways you can engage your kid in being more productive based on the kind of behavior that was flagged. Recently, Bark has added screen time and a web filter feature.

Click here to see 5 major differences between Bark and Qustodio.

Bark App Full Review

Once you download the application and set up your account, it will prompt you to link the app to your kids' account. To do this, you will have to enter your child's name and his or her birth year. Once you do that, you will be taken to the application's dashboard. To start monitoring and tracking your kid's phone, either you or your kid have to enter their username, along with the password for every social media account that the kid uses. Whenever an account is linked, you will see it appearing on the dashboard as well.

Whenever Bark detects a threat or a potential issue, the user will be sent out a notification or an email on the smartphone which has the application. This will allow you to check the messages and photos that were exchanged. This will also give you details about the date and time of those files. This app also categorizes those content under profanity, cyberbullying, depression, sexually explicit content, and more.

Bark App-Features and Limitations

Features:

• Identifying Risky Behavior

One of the most robust features that we analyzed through the Bark app review is its social media monitoring feature of letting parents know about risky behavior.

Whether your kids are planning for an after-college party or talking to a friend about suicide, Bark catches all of these behaviors seamlessly.

Also, Bark will notify you as well when your child texts CD9 or 9, which is a code for parents nearby, and 53X, which is a code for sex.

• Social Media & Text & Email Monitoring

Through Bark, parents can track and monitor what their kids do with their social media accounts, for example, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, Snapchat, GroupMe, and more. But Bark only works on Android devices for Snapchat monitoring. It lets you go through their text messages and alerts you about their concerning interactions. You can also monitor your child's email by linking their email account.

• 24/7 Detection

Bark operates 24/7 and 356 days a year and indicates signs of online predators, sexting, adult content, drug use, cyberbullying, suicidal thoughts, and more.

• Parental Alerts

You receive automatic alerts whenever there is a potential issue detected. Parents can check the alert via the Bark online portal and get the details.

• Screen Time & Web Filter

Bark has recently released two new features in April 2020. With the Screen Time feature, you can set up a limit for the time your kids can spend on their devices. With the Web Filter feature, you can block unwanted websites or turn off the internet connection for the device totally to prevent your child from accessing the internet at an improper time.

• Bark Home, An internet filter

Yes, this is an internet filter that plugs in the router to work. A subscription is NOT required with the purchase of Bark Home.

Limitations:

• Minimal personalization option

The biggest drawback of Bark is that it can only catch severe profanity. Although it has a profanity filter, all it allows you to do is turn it off or on. This means parents have to look for and monitor everything that could be risky for them on their own and Bark allows them to monitor either everything or nothing at all. And the same can be said about inappropriate behavior, illicit content, and change inactivity.

• Ambiguous end of the trial package

Bark has a dashboard and shows you the number of days remaining for the free trial, and it asks for your credit card details even for the free trial option. However, it is hard to understand the process of canceling. It doesn't tell if the subscription will get canceled automatically, or you will be charged.

• No location history tracking & geofencing features

Bark has a dashboard and shows social media alerts for parents who care about social media dangers. But for parents who need to track kids' real-time location or history, Bark is not the best choice for them. Because it doesn't offer a real-time family locator feature and only uses the check-Ins feature to locate kids.

• Can't block dangerous apps or check app activity

Though Bark can detect risky social media messages on time, it can only set time limits for apps and websites. It means parents can never help kids completely block dangerous apps or know what they are doing online. It only can help parents find out the problems, not give a solution.

• No SafeSearch or Driving tracking features

• A little expensive for parents

Bark price is $14 per month or $99 annually for full features. It doesn't have a quarter price too. For parents who have a limited budget, the price may not affordable.

After looking at all the pros and cons of the Bark app, we are sure; you must be thinking about other and better alternatives. For parents, nothing can be more nerve-wracking than thinking about their children's safety. Being parents is a full-time job in itself. You worry about their safety when they go out to school, college, for a party, out in the playground to play, and more.

You are never sure what your kids are up to, and the scariest part is, that predators are lurking everywhere who could be dangerous for your kids. Kids these days are more vulnerable to cyberbullying, catfishing, porn, and many other harmful activities.

If you have used the Bark app and now thinking about a better alternative, then try FamiSafe. FamiSafe is one of the best parental control apps available for parents. This application is extremely reliable and safe to use, and it lets you keep an eye on your children 24 x 7.

Why FamiSafe is the better alternative?

FamiSafe is an easy-to-use parental monitoring application that offers an all-around parental control solution. It has more excellent features than Bark with an affordable and flexible pricing plan, for instance, GPS Tracking, checking browsing history, social media monitoring, and a YouTube video blocker. You can check which your child is talking to and sending messages to, take a look at their social media accounts, block and monitor applications, and more. The great part is, FamiSafe has uninstalled protection on Android devices. When kids try to get rid of their parents, they should know the parental control pin. It only needs $59.9 per year and can manage up to 30 accounts.