Google has long allowed parents a SafeSearch filtering setting that keeps kids from using the search engine to find inappropriate sites like those with explicit sexual images or text. The problem was that kids could easily change those settings. Starting Wednesday, however, the company is allowing parents to lock those settings to make it harder (though not impossible) for kids to bypass the settings. To change the settings, the parent will have to log into his or her Google account and enter a password.
This is great news for parents looking to make search engines, the primary means for accessing web content, safer for kids. This is an improvement on Yahoo’s safe search password lock, which only requires a child to click “log out” to circumvent the settings. When the user logs out of Google, the Google Safe Search cookie keeps the settings intact. But as the CNET article points out though, this solution isn’t perfect:
If you set them only for Internet Explorer, for example, they won’t restrict access from Firefox, Chrome, or other browsers. Also, according to a Google representative, the child can get around the settings by using the private browsing feature that is now built into the latest versions of Firefox, Internet Explorer, and Chrome.
Not only does using the IE InPrivate setting defeat the SafeSearch lock in Google, but the safe search settings of both Yahoo and Google are defeated by simply clicking Tools/Delete Browsing History/Cookies in IE and deleting all cookies. Again, safe search password locking is a great feature for younger users, but won’t stop a tech-savvy teen. The best overall solution is for filtering vendors to build a safe search lock into their products that covers all major search engines.
Filed under: Filtering, Internet Safety
I think a better way to lock the safe search is to use K9 Web Protection. This will then apply to all users and all browsers on that computer.
An even better option is to enforce safesearch at the Internet gateway itself, so that it applies to all the machines surfing through it.
Content Filtering Proxies like SafeSquid allows you to enforce safesearch at the gateway, so that no matter what an individual user sets his preference as, safesearch is still enforced to his search queries.
Reference: http://www.safesquid.com/html/portal.php?page=137
Nothing done at the client can possibly be secure, because any tech-savvy teen can just install another browser or use a linux CD. If they don’t know how, they’ll know someone who knows. The server end can’t do much either, without a way to identify clients.
Sachin is right: The only way to impose a filter that cannot be trivially bypassed is on the network, with some sort of gateway device. But operating and maintaining one of these is beyond the skills of all but a few parents, and even they can be bypassed with a bit of work.