Crackle has been available, in one form or another, since 2004. Since it’s a free service, it has lots of users and plenty of content. Thankfully, there are plenty of shows and movies your kids could watch.
How to Enable Crackle Parental Controls on Desktop
Desktop computers like Windows offer parental tools to control what your kids do, but you can take it one step further and control what your kids can watch.
Turning on the Crackle parental controls isn’t a very difficult job at all. However, you need to have an account on Crackle to use this feature. Luckily, it’s super easy to set up an account, and it only requires an email address and a password. Having an account will also allow you to use the Crackle app on various other devices.
After you’ve created your Crackle account, do the following:
Load Crackle. com in your browser and sign in to your account Hover over your profile image in the top right corner and go to Settings. Simply scroll to Preferences and toggle on the Parental Controls feature.
That’s all you have to do! Since you’re using the desktop version of Crackle, you should know you’ll be required to input your account password to bypass the parental controls when you want to watch content for more mature audiences.
How to Enable Crackle Parental Controls on Mobile
When you’re enjoying Crackle on your phone, things are a lot easier to manage. In order to restrict inappropriate content on the mobile app, you don’t even need to log in to an account.
Here’s what you need to do:
Launch Crackle on your device. Tap on the menu button (three horizontal lines) in the top left corner. Go to Settings. Under Parental Controls, check the box for Restrict All Content. You’ll be asked to set up a 4-digit PIN which will be required when anyone tries to access content with an inappropriate rating.
The Reality of Crackle’s Parental Controls
Before you go and enable parental controls on Crackle and sit back relaxed because your kid won’t watch any inappropriate content, we have a reality check for you: that’s not how Crackle’s feature works. In fact, for younger kids, the feature doesn’t work so well.
The good thing is that this Crackle feature exists. Even in the shape it’s in, it’s a good thing that it is there to filter out some of the content.
The Crackle Parental Controls work in two layers. The first layer is what we see when we run a search or choose a genre to check the content. The parental controls filter out content marked as TV-MA, which stands for mature, or R, which stands for “restricted,” so titles don’t even show up.
The second layer is the pin or password, which is required to play content that has no rating. And there’s a lot of that available on Crackle.
Furthermore, since there is no way to choose what type of ratings you want to restrict, shows and movies with a PG-13 or TV-14 rating, for instance, remain unbothered by the Parental Controls. There are always ways for children to bypass parental controls as is. But parents of younger kids should keep an eye out on them at all times while using Crackle because age-inappropriate content is easy to access even with the filter in place.
Don’t Forget to Power Up Parental Controls
It’s nice to have parental controls on Crackle, even in its current form. However, it would be best to remember that Crackle’s feature is not comparable to what you get when using Netflix, HBO Max, Disney+, or other platforms that are better suited for children, so more vigilance is required from parents.
