Tweet

Google engineer Matthias Heiler blogged about A few easy tools the whole family will love, to remind parents about tools to lock in “safe” (i.e. filtered) searches on Google and YouTube.

He reminds parents that they can go to Google search settings page to filter out sexually explicit content from search results and then lock in that setting  for your browser by entering your Google account name and password (that same info is needed to return to unfiltered search).

Another option is to use the filtered search option at SafeKids.com that you can also find in the site’s navigation bar.  It works with any browser.

Heiller also recommends parents consider using YouTube’s Safety Mode that “helps you and your family avoid videos that might be OK with our Community Guidelines, but you might not want popping up on your family computer.”  Like Safe Search, you have the option of locking in YouTube Safety mode.

He also points out that you can enable SafeSearch on YouTube’s mobile app by opening your settings, pressing “Search” and then selecting “SafeSearch Filtering” and then select moderate or strict filtering.

As I point on on SafeKids.com’s safe search page, As Google states on its own site, “no filter is 100% accurate, but SafeSearch should eliminate most inappropriate material.” If something does slip through, please contact Google so that they can investigate and let us at SafeKids know as well.

For more, see Safety tools for summer video viewing & search by Anne Collier.

Disclosure: I’m co-director of ConnectSafely.org, a non-profit Internet safety organization that receives financial support from Google.