WiseChoice.net Reviewer's Comments

WiseChoice.net is a subscription based filter—at $5 a month, it is comparable to the higher-ranking products in price. However, this software isn’t comparable in filtering effectiveness. We were able to access objectionable material easily.

Feature Set:  

This software is basic and doesn’t have many advanced features. The only options are selecting specific categories to block. You can also choose to block chat, email, IM and peer-to-peer file sharing.

You are able to customize filtering criteria per user, so younger children can have different settings than the teenagers or adults in the family.

Some features WiseChoice doesn’t offer are time control and extensive reporting. These would add to the overall practicality of the software.

Ease of Use:  

There are not a lot of features to confuse the user. This is a good program if you just want to install the software and forget about it.

Ease of Installation:  

Though the setup was straightforward with good instructions, there were several steps and it took more time to install than the other products we reviewed.

Filtering Effectiveness:  

As we do with all filtering software, we ran a variety of tests on WiseChoice. Overall, it did average. The program was able to differentiate between closely related keywords like “breast” and “chicken breast” and even blocked a questionable news story. It also blocked risqué web addresses like playboy.com.

We were disappointed that we were still able to access some nude pictures easily. In one instance, WiseChoice said we were blocked, we clicked “ok” and it let us into the site anyway. It wasn’t a really bad site, but it was one with small nude photos that definitely should have been blocked with the settings we applied.

We also searched for some pornographic foreign terms and the software blocked all terms successfully.

Summary:  

This is a basic filter that is very simple to use. It might be a good option for someone who wants to install the software and forget about it. However, we were disappointed in its overall filtering capabilities.