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Filed under: Kids, Search

Google's SafeSearch mode gets safer with new lock feature

If you've ever used Google to search for, ahem, "adult" content, you're aware of the site's SafeSearch feature. It filters out questionable content, to the delight of parents and the dismay of porn-seekers. Now there's a new "lock" function for SafeSearch, which keeps your account's settings locked in strict filtering mode until you enter a password and change them. The obvious use here is for parents looking to keep risque material out of view of their kids, but I can also see it being handy to prevent embarrassing search results from accidentally popping up at work.

When SafeSearch is locked, you'll see four extremely conspicuous, very large colored balls in the top right corner of your search results. Google says this is so parents and teachers can tell from across the room whether the lock is still in place, and come over to reset it if it's not. It even works across Google's various languages, so clever kids can't get around it that way. Could they thwart SafeSearch in an even more obvious way, though, by simply logging out of Google? I guess that's where keeping a close eye on the giant colored balls comes in.

If you're confused about how to go about turning the lock on, the very clear video instructions in Google's official blog post will shed some light.

[via AppScout]

Filed under: Internet, Microsoft, Search

Bing addresses porn controversy with separate domain for explicit content



The last time we talked about the uproar over Bing's live video previews including some explicit material, Lee was reporting that Microsoft had changed the default safesearch features to block porn. A week later, they've taken one further step to reassure concerned customers that they're not going to accidentally see XXX videos. Potentially explicit videos and images are now served from their own domain, explicit.bing.net.

They've also gone ahead and added the source URL into the query string. The average user's not going to look at that, but it makes things easy for corporate filters to just block anything with "explicit.bing.net" in the string. I'm not sure if this is overcorrecting for a mistake that, as Lee argued, wasn't that bad to begin with. It should definitely put to rest any remain concerns that Bing should be renamed Microsoft Live Porn, though.


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So, just how good at time waster games are you? Think you've got the stuff? Well, The World's Hardest Game 2.0 doesn't think you do. Yes, amazingly, it's possible to have a sequel to a game called "The World's Hardest Game". It doesn't seem logically possible, since if the first one was actually the world's hardest, how could another one come along and share the moniker? It made me doubt the name in the first place. That is, until I tried the game. The mechanics of the game are very simple. You are a small red square, ...

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