How it works
What actually happens
This page is the mechanism — for an Android tablet or phone, and for a Windows PC or Mac. Those two are the only kinds of device ParentProof can supervise. A child's iPhone or iPad is not one of them; the devices page says why.
The whole path, before any detail
Six steps. Four of them you do once per device and never again; the sixth is the one you keep coming back to.
Create your account
Enter your email and password in the web app, choose a plan, and continue to Stripe-hosted checkout. Start here.
Get the installer for your PC or Mac
One file. Everything else travels inside it — your child's app and the computer protection are both in there, so there is nothing else to hunt for. A free download for Windows and Mac.
Sign in inside the installer
The same account. That is what links what you set up to your dashboard.
Choose the job
Control an Android device, or control this computer. Run the installer again later to do the other one.
Follow the wizard
It checks what is in the way first and says so in plain language.
Customise from your dashboard
Apps, sites, schedules, limits, the home screen, the remote switch — in any browser, on any phone.
Step two is the one thing you need a computer for. The installer is a free download for Windows and Mac — get it here, with no sign-in needed to fetch it. Android hands over supervision across a USB cable and there is no route to it over the air, which is why this one step cannot happen on a phone.
Signing in inside the installer is optional: skip it and it hands you a pairing code at the end, which you type into "Add a tablet" in your dashboard to link the device instead.
Path one
An Android tablet or phone
Before you start
- A USB cable and the tablet in your hand. This is not done over the air.
- One switch turned on in the tablet's own settings, called USB debugging. The setup app shows you the exact taps for your tablet at the moment it needs it.
- No personal account signed in on the tablet yet. Android refuses to hand supervision to anyone while an account is present — this is the rule that usually means a factory reset.
Why the reset is usually unavoidable. Android grants its protected management role only when no personal accounts are present. This is Android's own safeguard against an app taking control of a device that is already in use. The rule is any account, not only a Google one — a Samsung, Microsoft or carrier account left signed in refuses setup the same way. After successful setup, the wizard explains when and how you can add your accounts back. Amazon Fire tablets are not supported at all, so this reset does not make one work.
The four things the wizard does to the tablet
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It looks, and it tells you what it found
The model, the Android version, whether an account is already signed in, and whether the tablet's maker has put something in the way. If your tablet cannot be fully supervised, you are told here — at the start, when you can still change your mind — and told what it can do instead.
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It hands ParentProof the keys
Your child's app is handed Android's protected management role, so Android treats ParentProof the way it treats the software that secures a work phone.
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It applies the restrictions and reads them back
Every restriction is switched on and then read straight back off the tablet. What you are shown is what the tablet itself reports, not what we meant to happen.
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It shows a pairing code
Short, expires in fifteen minutes, works once. Type it into your dashboard and the tablet is linked to your account.
Exactly what is put in force
These are Android's own protections, not ours — the tablet enforces them, so an app cannot switch them off. Every one is listed, with what each buys you.
| Protection | What it stops | When |
|---|---|---|
| Extra user profiles | Creating a second user profile to escape the managed one | Always |
| Safe mode | Booting into safe mode, where installed apps are switched off — ParentProof included | Always |
| Factory reset | Wiping the tablet from its own Settings | Always |
| Installing from outside the Play Store | Installing an app file downloaded from a browser | Always |
| Moving files over USB | Moving files on or off over the cable | Always |
| Changing the date and time | Winding the clock forward to defeat a schedule or a daily limit | When you switch it on |
| Changing the tablet's web filter | Pointing the tablet at a different filtering service to get round yours | When you switch it on |
Two things we deliberately leave alone
- Installing apps is not blocked, so the Play Store keeps working.
- Changing accounts is not blocked, so you can sign into Google after setup.
How we know this list is true. Nobody keeps it up to date by hand. Before every release, ParentProof sets up a real tablet, reads all seven protections back off it, and stops the release if one of the five permanent ones is missing — or if either of the two we promise not to use has appeared. If this page and the product ever disagree, the release is what breaks, not the page.
What the child sees
A home screen with their things on it
ParentProof becomes the home screen. The apps you allowed are there, large and plainly labelled. Nothing else is.
What a block actually looks like
Today a blocked site simply does not open, so most apps show their own "can't be reached" message rather than a ParentProof one. ParentProof's own kid browser goes further — it names the site and offers "ask a grown-up" right there.
A way to ask
A request goes to you rather than to a dead end. The most common cause of a defeated filter is a child with no legitimate route to the thing they need.
Apps and sites are controlled differently, and the difference matters
Apps: allow-only
Nothing opens unless you named it. ParentProof becomes the home screen, so an app you have not allowed has no icon, and Android will not open it. You are never chasing the next thing they installed, because installing it is not what decides whether it runs.
Sites: filtered, not allow-listed
You pick a family-safe filtering service — Cloudflare's or AdGuard's — and the tablet is locked to it, so it cannot be swapped out on the device. Adult sites then stop opening in almost every app, including the browsers hidden inside TikTok, Instagram and Discord. The categories you tick are checked against ParentProof's own blocklist as well, refreshed every day.
What this filter does not cover. A browser that looks sites up privately on its own — Firefox does this out of the box — sits outside this filter, and a site opened by typing its raw numeric address is never looked up at all. Both are still held by the app allow-list, because an app you did not allow cannot open in the first place. Your dashboard tells you, tablet by tablet, whether the filter is confirmed in force or only requested, and treats "not confirmed" as "not filtering" rather than rounding it up.
Path two
A Windows PC or a Mac
Same installer, same account, same dashboard. This one changes the machine it is running on, so it asks for administrator rights once and prints every change before it makes it.
Windows 10 and 11
- ParentProof runs underneath every account on the machine, not just yours, so it cannot be closed from a child's account
- A family-safe web filter covering the whole computer
- The browsers' own private lookups turned off, so they cannot slip around that filter
- Rules applied inside Chrome and Edge — the only place a rule about one page inside a site can hold
- Programs you have not allowed do not start
macOS
- Installed once with your administrator password, and out of a child's reach afterwards
- A family-safe web filter covering the whole machine
- Every step checked after it is applied, and reported back as a tick or a cross
- A way to remove it, put in place at the same time
Never a cross hidden as a tick. If a step did not take, the installer says so and says which.
The way out is installed before the way in. Before ParentProof changes anything on the computer, the tool that undoes it is already there. A setup that stops halfway can be reversed without us and without wiping the machine — which is the difference between a bad evening and a lost computer.
Web rules on a computer. On Windows, the categories and sites you block stop resolving for every browser and app on the machine. On a Mac, the family-safe filter covers the whole machine and the individual sites you name are not blocked. A rule aimed at one page inside a site reaches Chrome and Edge only, so block the whole site when it matters.
The same five questions, per platform
Everything above, side by side. A row says yes only where the protection holds on the device itself.
| Question | Android tablet / phone | Windows | macOS |
|---|---|---|---|
| Only allowed apps open | Yes — ParentProof is the home screen | Partial — the programs you blocked will not start, but a child can still open others | Partial — the programs you blocked will not start; it is not the allow-only home screen the tablet has |
| Web filtering | Yes — a family-safe filter across the whole device, plus ParentProof's own kid browser | Yes — blocked categories and named sites stop resolving for every browser and app on the machine | Partial — the family-safe filter covers the whole machine; individual sites you name are not blocked here |
| Daily limits & bedtime | Yes — schedules, per-app limits, and a whole-day budget | Partial — scheduled pauses are enforced; per-app limits and the whole-day budget are not | Yes — schedules, per-app limits, and a whole-day budget |
| Pause now, from your phone | Yes | No — Android only | No — Android only |
| Child can remove it | No — Android itself holds ParentProof in place | No — administrator rights only | No — administrator rights only |
Undoing it
Every setup has a supported way out. On a tablet, handing supervision back has to be done while the device is still linked to your account. On Windows and Mac the removal tool is put in place before anything on the computer is changed. Read the recovery steps before you start, and begin on a device you are able to reset or restore.