I would like to deviate from Church Management Systems and Church Membership Software in this post.
As y'all know I like Linux. And I really like Ubuntu. But I love FireFox!!!!
I recently built a computer for my kids (Using Ubuntu of course). As I was setting up the machine I came to the point most parents do: How do I let my kids safely surf the Internet. I have young children so not only was I trying to protect my children but provide a means of navigating the Internet that an eight year old can do.
So I started Googling and found Glubble.
Glubble is an add on to the FireFox browser that basically takes over the browser and prevents access to non-approved sites. The cool thing is a child can attempt to go to a site, be prevented from accessing the site and put in a request to Mom and Dad to gain access to the site. Mom and Dad can log on to their computer and grant access to the site. Once a site is approved it is known as a Glubble.
Glubble comes with a bunch of loaded Glubbles that most parents would grant access to. Discovery Channel Glubble, Disney Glubble and so forth.
The one critique I have is that Google search results are also filtered. They are filtered to the point that almost nothing comes back. This is the one feature I wish Glubble could allow a parent to turn on or off. I'm not too worried about what my child might search. I just do not want them getting to non-approved stuff. But I would like them to be able to search and find potential new Glubbles that they would like to request access too.
If any one reads this post and finds a Christian Child oriented site please email or post a comment here. I would like to add Christian oriented sites to my family's Glubble.
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1 comment:
Hi CD,
Thanks for the heads up for Glubble and your kind words. It's always nice to read blog posts like yours promoting Glubble. Perhaps it's nice to know for your readers that we're still very busy developing and improving Glubble. We're actually pushing for a new release very soon with many awesome new features based on the feedback we had from our users.
Regarding the issue you have with the augmented Google search. You're right Google searches might return little to no results. That's because we filter all Google generated results against the approved site list per individual child. Although we're still working to improve the search functionality for Glubble, we did decide not to allow access to 'open' Google search results. We found the results, but also the related Google Ads, simply too riskful. But we're now testing and thinking to add an extra option for parents to decide for themselves whether to allow 'open' Google search or not. So you might find what you're looking for pretty soon added to Glubble.
A web site for children from a Christian perspective I personally think is cool and fun for young children is: http://www.christiananswers.net/kids/home.html
To allow access for the web site you probably need to bookmark this url: http://christiananswers.net/kids/
Many thanks again for your kind words.
Kind regards,
Bartel Scheers
Editor-in-Chief, Glubble
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