The Internet can be a scary place for a young child. After all, you never know when your young child will accidentally stumble upon a porn site when researching the history of the White House. There are Internet filters that do a pretty good job of keeping your kid out of sites you don’t want them to see, but Google just might have something better for Chrome users.
Google announced today that it’s introducing a new feature called Supervised Users into the Chrome OS beta channel. As the name implies, it allows a parent or other authority figure to supervise the Web browsing sessions of those who you deem to be too young for all the Internet has to offer.
So, how does it work? First, you have to set up a supervised account on your Chromebook for the children in your house. This will allow your child to use the Internet at their leisure on their own account. After their done browsing, you can visit chrome.com/manage to see a history of the Web pages they visited. From there, you can block sites that you don’t want them seeing again and even manage permissions for previously blocked Web sites.
In short, Google has just saved you the annual fee you were paying to some Internet filter company. It’s also a better solution than Internet filters as it doesn’t require you to install software on your computer. It’s all built within Chrome so it’s easy to use.
Google notes that it’s also rolling out an early version of Supervised Users for Chrome Beta users on Windows, Mac and Linux. You use it in the same way you would on Chrome OS, and it has all the same features. Now with Chrome, your child’s sneaky Web browsing habits will never escape your sight.
If you want to try out Supervised Users, you can grab the Chrome beta here. For Chromebook users, check out Google’s handy guide on signing up for the Chrome OS beta.
[Image: Google Chrome Blog]