Recommendations for blocking and accountability software?

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Hi all,

I am wondering whether anyone has any experience and recommendations concerning internet blocking and accountability software.

To make a long story short… I have struggled with impurity basically my whole life. There has been some modest progress lately, but having moved more recently into a situation where I have more privacy and freedom than ever before, things have not been going so well, and I believe some form of accountability software could help a lot.

An important detail is that the main source of my problems is a paraphilia. I don’t use and am not tempted by “normal” pornography at all, and I’m not certain that all of the websites that are problems for me would be blocked by default filters. So blacklisting functionality is very important. I think it would also be very helpful to restrict/flag search engines, or filter search queues… particularly Google Images and Amazon. (It’s hard to tell whether different software does this… so if anyone has experience, it would be appreciated.)

I had been looking at this list and considering specifically Covenant Eyes and X3watch. Someone I know highly recommended Covenant Eyes… but, since I have an iPhone, I am worried about this: “Keep in mind, when using Covenant Eyes on iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad, you must use their web browser when browsing the internet to utilize the software.” Is it really true that you can get around the software just by using Safari?

Accordingly, I’ve been leaning toward X3watch, but as I would be paying in each case, I’d like to hear from people before pulling the trigger…

There is a lot out there, and maybe something else would also suit my needs.

I am very grateful to any insight anyone can give me! God bless.
 
I don’t have experience of using theese myself, but by looking at the specifics of what each program can do, I would say use CovenantEyes for like a month or two as it costs less and if you like it stick to it, if you don’t try X3Watch
 
Thanks. CovenantEyes is a monthly payment, so over time it is more expensive–but of course if I were to try both, it’d be cheaper to start with that one.

That is perhaps what I’ll do… unless anyone else has any thoughts?
 
Thanks. I’ll take a look.

Having done a bit more research, I have found that the iOS problem is a problem for all accountability software. Both CovenantEyes and X3Watch will only work on the iPhone if you use their own web browser rather than Safari. The good news is that it is possible to turn off Safari and turn off app downloading, with a passcode set by an accountability partner.

I have also learned that nothing out there can filter or scan encrypted pages, which includes search returns from Google Images. That is unfortunate but I suppose one just has to deal with it.
 
Can you just block Google Image search?

I admit I find it useful for things like Pinterest and dinner recipes, but if it caused me to sin, I’d block it entirely without a second thought.
 
I started using Qustodio for my children, as it’s cheaper than CovenantEyes and provides good control over blacklisting specific websites. In time I decided to install it on my own phone as well. It is true that like CovenantEyes, it only blocks the standard browsers by default. However, you can block apps such as Safari.

In addition, if you know how to configure your internet router at home, try OpenDNS Family Shield, which blocks the worst websites at the network level, and that can’t be circumvented on any device connected to that network.
 
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