Safe Searching Online

Greetings!

Do you have filters or filtering software on your computers at school? Google has some options that really do a good job with filtering out adult content. Just do a search for ‘ safe search’ and a box will appear at the top of your screen with instructions.

SET THE FILTERS: Go to settings and set the filter to Strict, then lock. You will need to input your Google account login and then you will be able to lock the settings. This should lock the filter across all Google domains. Please note that this will need to be done on all the web browsers you use. I set filters on Firefox, Explorer, and Chrome. If there is a way to set filters for the computer to include all the browsers, I don't know how to do this except to have filtering software.

SET THE HOMEPAGE: After this, I suggest you also use as your homepage Google Safe Search for Kids. Search for 'Safe Search Kids' or just 'Safe Search'. Click on the Google Safe Search link and copy the link. Use 'Options' to set the homepage.

You might wonder why I recommend you do both of these things. A number of years I set the homepage to YahooKids which was a safe search. However, many students in 5th and 6th grades would just type in “Google.com” and go straight to Google. It isn’t hard to change the homepage, so by setting the filter, it won’t matter if they use another homepage.

I learned something about Bing. I know a lot of kids like to use Bing here for a search engine. However, when I researched how to set filters in Bing, an article gave instructions, but at the end, they mentioned that there is no lock on the filter. Results are filtered, and a message comes up to say that if the user wants filters to be removed they need to go to settings. The user can remove filters apparently.

If you have filtering software at your school, you are likely covered, but these ideas are still worth thinking about. It might not hurt to have back-up. It also might be good to mention this to parents who may not have their home computers filtered for children.

Have a great week.
Audrey