Safe Search and Blocked Web Site Categories not working

Archive
1

Hi all and thank you for being there. The Safety Minder is doing a great job of logging all the sites visited but it is not yet blocking pornographic sites or pornographic related google searches. I’ve read lots of posts by people with similar problems and I have double checked that all the settings are in place and turned on. Value any suggestions. Cheers.

2

Hi all and thank you for being there. The Safety Minder is doing a great job of logging all the sites visited but it is not yet blocking pornographic sites or pornographic related google searches. I’ve read lots of posts by people with similar problems and I have double checked that all the settings are in place and turned on. Value any suggestions. Cheers.

3

Hi Katie,

Thank you for your speedy reply. I have double checked the settings you recommended. We only have the one computer. In the Web Settings, "Web Supervision" is on and "Block the site" is selected. In the Search Settings, "Search Supervision" is on and "Safe Search" is set to "yes". Value your thoughts on how to get these settings to take affect.

Kindest regards,

 

4

Hi Cadbury,

 

Since you have the Safe Search enabled, the program forces the Safe Search on the search engines,  We currently support the following search engines.

 

• Google.com

• Search.Yahoo.com

• Ask.com

• MSN.com

• Live.com

• YouTube.com

• AskKids.com

• FactMonster.com

• Craigslist.org

• wikipedia.org

• eBay.com  

 

In your case, when you Google search, you should see the phrase “Google SafeSearch is ON” on the webpage as shown in the screen snap below.

 

 

 safesearch.JPG

 

5

Hi Katie,

Thank you for your assistance. I tried the Google search, but only the standard Google web page came up. It was missing the words "Google Safe Seach is on" which are shown in your screen image below. Value your thoughts on how to force the safe search parameters to take affect.

Kindest regards

6

What browser are you using?  Also, please make sure you Google search on the PC with NSM installed to be able to see the “Google Safe Search is ON”. Do you have the same settings as in screen snap?

 

search.JPG

 

Thanks,

Katie

7

Hi Katie,

 

Thank you for your ongoing patience. We are using Internet Explorer 8.0.  As you suggested, I logged on to our home computer as my daughter. Then I went to the START menu and ALL PROGRAMS and selected NORTON SAFETY MINDER and then NORTON SAFETY MINDER WEB SITE. I logged on with my email and password and was acknowledged as DAD. I selected my daughter's picture and then SETTINGS. At the SHOW menu, I selected SEARCH. The same screen snap that you have shown below came up.

 

I feel confident that I have the settings in place as you requested in your earlier suggestions. There seems to be some curious reason why the Norton Safety Minder is happily logging all the sites visited but not blocking any sites or searches, and another reason why Safe Search does not appear on the Google search page.

 

Thank you again for your efforts to resolve these issues.

 

8

What country are you in?

 

Thanks,

Katie

 
9

Hi Katie,

 

Thank you again for your speedy reply. I live in Australia. I do hope this is a fixable problem rather than an unfixable regional problem that is outside of Norton's control. I read a Norton Staff Member's reply to a person who was in a country that had specific difficulties related to that country and my heart sank as I wondered if I would be the same. Norton 360 is very popular here and I bought it with the parental control feature as one of the main reasons for purchase. Without any doubt, Norton 360 has been the best software decision that I have ever made. Its protection and tune-up facilities are unparalleled.

 

Thank you again for you ongoing assistance.

10

Currently the Online Family Safety Minder does not support region specific pages. when you visit google, is it a region specific address?

11

Hi Andrew,

Thank you for your suggestion. You are right. The words "Safe Search" is not written on the "google.com.au" web page, but it does come up if I use just "google.com". Sadly, neither search page prevented me from making an inappropriate search and downloading pornographic material. The search blocker and web site blocker are yet to activate. As I mentioned earlier, the Norton Safety Minder does log all sites visited, but if that is all it will do, my kids are still vulnerable. Value your thoughts.

12

HI Cadbury,

 

we released an update for the Windows Client last night and please check if it corrects the issue not blocking websites.  The version number of Norton Safety Minder should be 1.1.0.21. 

Thanks,

Katie

13

Hi Katie,

 

   Thank you for the news about the latest version update. I have downloaded it and replaced the earlier version with slightly improved results. After restarting, I checked that the correct version was installed and operating and then proceded to run some tests. Whilst the actual words "Safe Search is On" do not appear on the "google.com.au" web page, trying to do a search for [Removed] results in a blocked search. Similarly, trying to guess a site by typing in words such as [Removed] to the URL brings up the Norton Safety Minder dog warning.

 

    Unfortunately, whilst google searches using words such as [Removed]  are prevented, both google.com and google.com.au searches for  [Removed] did return an abundance of the most depraved images and site listings. Sadly, the Safety Minder did not prevent me from going to any of these sites, including one site which was titled [Removed] which has the most unhelpful videos and pictures.

 

     Thank you again for alerting me to the latest version of Norton Safety Minder. The new version has helped a little. I would be appreciative of ideas on how to close the gap in the protection it offers my children.

 

    Kindest regards.

 

 

 

[edit: Please keep post content clean and do not link to malicious sites per the  Participation Guidelines and Terms of Service.]

Message Edited by shannons on 08-07-2009 07:02 PM
14

Hi Cadbury,

 

Thanks for the update… before you downloaded the latest version of NSM, no pornographic sites were being blocked, right?  If so, I am glad that the new version blocks sites which are being rated as pornography.  

 

To answer your question on the video that you were able to view, that particular video is not being rated as a pornographic video on Google site ( I was able to view it with “Google SafeSearch is ON”), and http://video.google.com is being categorized as General and Entertainment & Music. That’s why it was not being blocked. 

 

If you like, you can put http://video.google.com on the blacklist in the program.  For details on how to do it, please check this site https://onlinefamily.norton.com/familysafety/help/blocking-a-website.jsp

 

Thanks,

Katie  

15

Hi Katie,

Thank you for getting back to me. Thank you also to shannons for the editing of my post and my apologies for failing to adhere to the terms of service in explaining my problem.

Whilst black listing the google video site is an option, would that not also prevent access to a good number of videos that are educational. Could you please tell me if there is another option which might only limit the inappropriate content of the google video site?

Many thanks

16

Cadbury,

 

Unfortunately because we cannot rate each individual video, Google has to determine which are deemed inappropriate and ask for an age verification to view such videos.

 

We are looking into ways to enhance this so we can have better control, but as of right now we don't.

 

Matt

 

 

17

I have read over these postings and am having problems with NSM not blocking any of the sites that are listed in the Category field.   I am sure the settings are correct, I have read many of these posts and that was the first thing I checked.  But to save time I will verify.

 

Child's Profile is protected green and checked.

Web Settings- block site and almost everything is Xed (39 of them).  Few white listed and they work.  Few Blacklisted and they are blocked.  It is the 39 that are not blocked.

Safe Search is on.

IM is off.

Social is on and the baby sitter is blocked.

Time is off.

Notify is on.

 

 

I live in the US (Texas). I am running Windows XP Home SP3, Norton Internet Security 2009, NSM 11021 and IE 8.  The program seems to log fine and searching seems to block searches only if strict search is set in Google (by the way anyone can disable that by clicking on the prefs tab).  If I add a site in the blacklist it is blocked and we get the warning.  However, if I type Playboy.com in the address field I can get there just fine no warnings no flags just the website.   Pretty much the same with any known site in any of the categories.

 

Like the interface in this program and seems like it would be a great program just need it to block the sites. 

18

Hi shaking417,

 

That’s kind of strange…Let’s make sure the Windows account has been assigned to the profile in the program correctly. 

 

Please click on the Norton Safety Miner icon (a dog paw image) in the system tray

Select Edit Accounts.

Enter email address and password for OnlineFamly.Norton account

Click OK

You should see the message XXX (your kid’s Windows account name) logs into this computer as YYY( your kid’s profile name on the OnlineFamily.Norton website)

 

Thanks,

Katie  
19

Hi Katie,

Thank you for you assistance with my problems. Just been reading your reply to shaking417 and noticed that he has the identical system configuration to mine. Hope this helps in refining the Norton Safety Minder.

Kindest regards,

20

Cadbury,

 

You’re welcome.  Thank you for your support and valuable feedbacks.

 

Thanks,

Katie