MMGuardian parental-control app review

Our Verdict

MMGuardian has tons of features, merely it's undermined past a terrible user interface.

For

Extensive feature assault Android
Granular controls
Can read texts on both iOS and Android

Against

Gets expensive with multiple devices
Terrible user interface
Small feature assault iOS

Tom's Guide Verdict

MMGuardian has tons of features, only it's undermined by a terrible user interface.

Pros

+
Extensive feature set on Android
+
Granular controls
+
Can read texts on both iOS and Android

Cons

-
Gets expensive with multiple devices
-
Terrible user interface
-
Pocket-size characteristic prepare on iOS

The company backside MMGuardian was founded in 2012, following the fairly common story of founders who were experiencing issues with controlling their own kids' device usage.

That seems to take led to a kitchen-sink approach: MMGuardian has virtually every feature yous tin think of, merely the user interfaces on both Android and iOS are outdated and often frustrating to use. It's not exactly one of the best parental control apps.

Even if you're an Android user who wants a rich characteristic set, you may be willing to await past MMGuardian's shortcomings for the deep level of command and wealth of information offered. And every bit both Apple and Google chip abroad at apps' abilities to log and block calls and text messages, not to mention read text messages, MMGuardian has plant workarounds to continue offering such features on both platforms.

But for both cost and user experience, y'all'd be better served on both mobile platforms by Net Nanny or Kaspersky Safe Kids.

MMGuardian: Costs and what'due south covered

The pricing for MMGuardian can be a piddling confusing, as it has variable rates depending on the device yous are looking to protect. Its formerly inexpensive iOS rates take been brought into line with its Android-phone rates.

	Android Phone	Android Tablet	iPhone/iPad
Single Device	$3.99 Monthly	$1.99 Monthly	$iii.99 Monthly
	$34.99 Yearly	$14.99 Yearly	$34.99 Yearly
	$79.99 v Years	N/A	N/A
Family Programme	$7.99 Monthly	$3.98 Monthly	$7.99 Monthly
	$69.99 Yearly	$29.98 Yearly	$69.99 Yearly
	$149.99 5 Years	N/A	North/A

Android tablets are cheaper to monitor because they lack the location tracking, call and SMS blocking, and text-message-monitoring features found on the Android phone app.

iOS lacks many features the Android phone app has, including comprehensive reports, fourth dimension limits, phone call and SMS blocking, or alerts, although information technology now offers monitoring of both SMS and instant messages via a Mac or Windows desktop app linked to the kid's phone.

Family Android telephone plans comprehend up to five devices of any blazon, whereas the family Android Tablet plans are logically restricted to the tablet apps. There is no distinct pick for an iOS-simply family plan.

If y'all have up to three iOS devices, you lot are better served past the single-device plans. But if you have 4 or five iOS devices, you should, oddly enough, opt for the Android phone family unit program, which covers five devices on either mobile OS.

You can try out whatever of the MMGuardian plans free for fourteen days; here is where to sign up.

MMGuardian: User ratings

The Android app is definitely the better of the two, and information technology enjoys a 4.i out of 5 rating with more than than 1 meg downloads in the Play Store. It's easy to run into how users would be drawn in by the features — MMGuardian doesn't skimp there, with almost every wishlist box checked on the Android version.

Things aren't quite equally rosy on the iOS side, with just a 1.four out of five on 384 ratings in the App Store. MMGuardian only doesn't hold up against much of the competition on iOS.

The iOS community also tends to be more punishing for poor design, and MMGuardian falls down hard there. The web portal and both mobile apps share a terribly outdated design aesthetic, with inexplicably varying interactions fifty-fifty within the same folio.

Oddly, the Android tablet doesn't get a new characteristic that was added to the iOS and Android smartphone apps afterwards our review was originally published. A new artificial-intelligence component looks for nudity in images saved to a device, and alerts parents if it finds any.

MMGuardian: Installation

We tested MMGuardian on a Google Pixel 2XL running Android 9.0 (Pie), an iPhone vii Plus and an iPad Air ii. The spider web portal was tested on a 15-inch, 2017 Macbook Pro running MacOS 10.13.6.

I actually recommend setting up MMGuardian via the app itself, as the web portal is more likely to misfile you.

Your starting time step should be to download the "MMGuardian Parental Control App for Kids Phone" from either Google Play or the iOS App Shop. In that location is a distinct app for the parent's phone that you will download later, only you can complete the entire installation and setup from the child's telephone.

On both mobile platforms, the app volition guide y'all through the necessary steps to approve the various permissions needed. This is slightly more involved on iOS as a management profile needs to exist installed via Safari, only neither installation takes more than a couple of minutes.

Oddly, the app never asks for your child's name or age during the setup process. This is the only app we tested in which that was the case.

To add that data, you need to select a child device in the parent app after the device is set up, select "Telephone Settings" or "Tablet Settings," then name the device. Ideally, you would call the device something like "John's Android Telephone" or "John's Tablet," merely you can call it anything you desire — you don't demand to input a child'due south actual name anywhere.

As well, you never enter the kid's birthdate or exact historic period, which is odd for a parental-command app. Instead, you selection an age range for the browser settings. As you might take gleaned by now, MMGuardian doesn't use child profiles — it only has different settings for every device.

MMGuardian: App management

App management varies greatly betwixt Android and iOS, with the iOS app able just to completely block all downloaded apps at once. (Native iOS apps remain agile.) The Android app lets y'all block whatever individual apps.

On iOS, this characteristic basically amounts to time management, equally in that location is no other time-restriction functionality. What the iOS MMGuardian app terms as" app control" merely lets you schedule when downloaded apps volition be blocked.

Other features grouped inside app control are disabling the iOS App Store and setting restrictions for iTunes and App Store content, but these are actually just native iOS features that are being used past the MMGuardian app.

The Android app, on the other hand, lets you lot get as granular every bit you similar. Your child'south entire app list is displayed with everything initially set to "Permit." Tap the greenish check mark next to any private app to block it, which volition flip the green check marking to a red circumvolve with a line through it. Other options are to allow all apps, block all apps, and immediately cake any newly downloaded apps.

As with the Kaspersky and Qustodio parental-command apps, at that place'south crossover with time management here likewise. If you lot tap the "Groups" tab at the tiptop of the screen, so tap the light-green activity button at the bottom correct of the screen, you lot can create groups of apps with specific time limits and schedules.

You can create every bit many of these groups as you like. If you lot want to just limit games or social apps for a specific fourth dimension frame, for example, you can create a specific grouping for that. Or you can make a global setting by borer "select all" to include all apps in the grouping.

You can prepare separate weekday and weekend time limits for these groups, ranging from 30 minutes to 4 hours. You tin can also schedule when these apps are to be blocked, and you can add multiple schedules to each group if necessary.

MMGuardian: Web filtering

On both Android and iOS, MMGuardian blocks the native spider web browser and replaces it with its ain. It too has filtering for the Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox and Opera browsers on Android. But you lot will even so take to block or delete whatsoever alternative browsers your kid might have installed on iOS.

This is the step where you finally select an age for your child. At that place are five age ranges to choose from, and selecting any will set up the default category block and settings.

MMGuardian is the champion of web-filtering categories, with approximately 150 in total. This feels like consummate overkill; the side by side-closest app in abundance of filter categories is Norton Family Premier, with 48.

MMGuardian's filtering worked perfectly in our testing; your mileage will be contingent on how well yous've blocked or deleted any alternative browsers.

Additionally, in that location are ii check boxes to allow downloads from the web and to prevent your location from being shared on the spider web.

The final piece for spider web filtering is the "Web Filter URL Override," which lets you block (or allow) a specific URL that information technology isn't being properly handled by one of the category filters. You can also view the previous solar day'due south web history to see if in that location's anything popping up that shouldn't be there, or if a site that is really fine is existence blocked.

MMGuardian: Time direction

The time-management feature is for Android only, and lets you schedule when the phone is locked completely. By default, the app creates separate "nighttime" schedules for weekdays and weekends that you can toggle on or off or tweak equally necessary.

Just remember that this characteristic completely locks the device, leaving open only the ability to contact the parent.

MMGuardian: Texting direction

SMS direction was an Android-but feature when we get-go wrote this review. As with web filtering, monitoring SMS messages on Android relies on replacing the native or third-party messaging app your kid is using with the MMGuardian messaging app. Once this is washed and other apps are deleted, the features available are reasonably extensive.

Call Block Fashion lets yous block not only calls but besides SMS messages from specific contacts or telephone numbers. Approachable text messages can't really exist blocked, only you can opt to be notified if a text is sent to a blocked contact.

MMGuardian also offers a daily study with the text of all SMS letters sent and received, which worked perfectly in my testing.

MORE: The One Google App Every Parent Needs

Finally, at that place is a Text Monitor Way that lets you specify words that you would similar flagged if they appear in your child's texts. They will prove upward in the reports, and yous can opt to receive an SMS when a friction match is establish.

In 2020, MMGuardian added "Message Reports for iPhone," a feature that delivers SMS and instant messages via a program that backs upwards the child'south iPhone to a parent's Mac or PC as long as the two devices are on the same Wi-Fi network. Information technology's an inelegant solution and nosotros oasis't had a chance to try it out in do, simply information technology should work in theory.

MMGuardian: Location tracking

MMGuardian has a fairly robust, if slightly odd, set of location features, with split up location map, location history and location-tracking functions.

The basic functionality is just the standard map identifying your kid'south current location, available on both iOS and Android. But y'all can go back and look at the child's location history for the last 12 hours, today, yesterday or the final 7 days. 1 unusual touch to this map is that it provides the physical speed that the child (or more accurately, his or her device) in miles per hr.

Track location is the terminal piece for this section. You lot set up a time schedule and and then track a child throughout that fourth dimension, with the pick to exist updated on the child'southward current location at regular intervals. We didn't observe this as convenient equally the geofencing in the Kaspersky or OurPact apps, but it worked fine and could certainly allow you to ensure a child makes it to or from schoolhouse all right.

Lock/Unlock

For i-off situations in which yous need your kid to stop using, or to be able to use, their device immediately, this can lock or unlock their device in a unmarried click.

Lock Setting

You can choose how your child's Android phone will carry when locked. You tin set information technology to send a customized automobile-response SMS if your child receives a text when the phone is locked, you tin accept the phone go into Silent Style and yous tin force it to end ongoing calls.

MMGuardian review: Bottom line

Given the high subscription price, it is difficult to recommend MMGuardian to almost anyone. Information technology does take a massive feature list for Android users, and I tin can imagine someone wanting all that data and control, just MMGuardian is then frustrating to manage that I don't think it is ultimately worth it.

Y'all tin can get shut to the same range features at a cheaper price and with a improve design from a competitor like Norton Family Premier.

Updated with addition of iOS message monitoring from Windows PCs. This review was originally published in February 2019.

A self-professed "wearer of wearables," Sean Riley is a Senior Author for Laptop Mag who has been covering tech for more than than a decade. He specializes in covering phones and, of course, article of clothing tech, simply has likewise written about tablets, VR, laptops, and smart habitation devices, to proper noun only a few. His articles have also appeared in Tom'southward Guide, TechTarget, Phandroid, and more than.