What is "Safe Search"?

Safe Search is a feature on major search engines that automatically blocks or limits explicit, violent, or inappropriate content from appearing in your search results. This is a crucial feature for most Parental Control strategies for parents who want to protect what their children from what they see online whether accidentally or on purpose.

Traditionally, Safe Search settings are often set directly on each search engine and on each browser and device. With DeCloudUs Safe Search, you can enable and enforce the setting at the DNS level for one device, multiple devices, or even the entire network.. with one click.

So what does this new settings page do?

Previously, DeCloudUs DNS had one option to either enable or disable Safe Search. To make the settings more granular, we separated them out into individual toggles, as you can see in the first screenshot above:

• Search Engines: You can force search engines like Google, Bing, DuckDuckGo, Brave, Yandex, and Pixabay to display family-safe results. You can enable on one or all engines.. it is your choice now.
• YouTube: You can force YouTube to operate in either "Moderate" or "Strict" mode depending on the level of content appropriateness you want to enforce.
• Blocking Other Engines: You can optionally block other search engines that do not allow DNS-enforced safe mode, like Yahoo Search, Ecosia, and Startpage.

We also made Safe Search settings available in the DNS profile Schedule settings, so you can change any of these settings depending on the time of the day or week.

How else does DeCloudUs help with Parental Controls?

Safe Search is just one of the tools in a larger Parental Controls strategy. We give you complete control on what to block, who to block it for, when to block it, what devices to block it on, and ways to prevent bypasses. Here is a guide that discusses how DeCloudUs can be used for Parental Control effectively.

One last thing..

DNS-enforced Safe Search cannot be disabled by changing search engines settings, as you can see in the screenshot above. To make it more effective, you can also enable "Filter Bypass" category that will block most attempts to get around these DNS rules.

If you have any questions, thoughts, feedback, or suggestions, please let us know.