If you’ve tried setting up parental controls before then you’ll know this can often involve a lot of work. You may need to create accounts for each one of your children, for instance, before defining in very precise detail exactly what sort of content they can access, and what they really shouldn’t.

And so we were very surprised to see how straightforward the free Kurupira Web Filter was, by comparison. No “per user” settings, no lists of content types, no real need to set up any web filtering options at all: the program automatically blocks “inappropriate” websites just as soon as it’s installed, without you having to take any additional actions.

Obviously this presents some challenges in terms of flexibility. If your kids are 14 and 15, for instance, you may want to allow far more content than if they were 4 and 5, yet there’s no option within Kurupira Web Filter to take account of this: the one setting somehow has to suit everyone (although you can turn it off temporarily for yourself, if you enter the program password).

A clean and simple interface ensures Kurupira is very easy to use

This approach does ensure the program is very easy to set up, though. And if you decide the default web filter doesn’t suit your needs, then you can always try a different setting. There are options to block only sites you’ve specifically blacklisted, for instance, or grant access only to websites you’ve flagged as acceptable. Or you can even turn this aspect of the program off entirely.

Of course there’s more to Kurupira than web filtering. Browse its menus and you’ll find options to set time-based limits for your child’s use of the internet, for example.

And if you explore the Applications menus then you’ll find tools to define which programs your kids can run (and when), and which are out of bounds.

But if all this is sounding just a little too strict then you can always leave them to access the system as normal, then simply use Kurupira’s report tools to keep an occasional eye on their activities. Click the History tab, for example, and you’ll see the programs they’re using, the websites they’re visiting, the internet searches they’ve entered, and more.

And if you decide a program has been abused then it’s easy to take action. Just right-click the process name, select “Add title to blocked list”, and they won’t be able to run that application again in future.

Kurupira Web Filter is still a very blunt instrument, and its “one size fits all” protection strategy could be a problem. It’s extremely easy to set up, though, has a good feature set, and you can’t beat the price: if you’re looking for simplicity above all else then Kurupira merits half an hour of your time.