The next pane, Ratings, relies on Web site ratings to block sites that contain varying degrees of violent and sexual content, as well as explicit language, unmoderated chat rooms, and other potentially dangerous subject matter. The checkboxes turn content restrictions on and off, and the drop-down menu under each one displays a range of offenses, from mild at the top to extreme at the bottom. We use the ratings provided by the Internet Content Rating Association; Web site designers can embed the ratings in their code and warn a user what content to expect before they arrive.

Four checkboxes under the ratings settings allow you to make exceptions to these ratings for educational, sports, medical, and artistic sites. For example, a medical site might have a detailed drawing of male or female genitals, something ordinarily not allowed if you set the sexual content drop-down menu to its highest level.

Unfortunately, because ratings are voluntary, most sites on the Internet are unrated.