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How To Lock Google SafeSearch
Posted November 12th, 2009 | in Google, How To, Lead Story | No Comments »When I discussed Google SafeSearch I mentioned that it was easy to change the setting and circumvent the use of SafeSearch as a parental control. Well, Google have now introduced a feature that allows you to lock SafeSearch into “strict” mode.
How To Lock SafeSearch
To lock SafeSearch you need to go to the Google search settings page. In the SafeSearch section you’ll see a new option to Lock SafeSearch:
Click on this link and you’ll be asked for your Google password. Check your browser is showing the secure site padlock then enter your password and Safe Search will be locked.
The locking process uses a cookie which means that it applies to all users on this computer on this browser on this user profile. So it’s still pretty easy to circumvent. However a nice touch is that the Google search page changes when SafeSearch is locked and shows a big bubble design in the top right:
So if you walk into the room and see a Google page without the bubbles you know SafeSearch has been unlocked (arguably this should have been the other way round – a highly visible design to show that SafeSearch is off).
To unlock SafeSearch on a particular browser you’ll need to log in to the same Google account that locked it in the first place.
Google SafeSearch gives an extra layer of protection however even with this new locking feature it’s no substitute for a full parental control package.
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