A first look at Kids Mode in Microsoft Edge

Kids Mode is a new parental control feature in Microsoft's Edge web browser that is currently being tested in Canary versions of the browser on US-English Windows and Mac OS systems.
Kids Mode is integrated natively in Edge and may be started from any regular profile. All it takes is to click on the profile icon in Edge and then on the "Browse in Kids Mode" link displayed in the menu that opens.
Edge users don't have to be signed-in for Kids Mode to work, but signing-in will sync settings. The first time you launch Kids Mode you are asked to select an age range; the two options provided are 5-8 years, or 9 and older.
Fun fact: the preferences in the Settings define the second age range as 9-12 years.
Kids Mode opens in full screen mode and the mode can only be exited if the Windows user enters the account credentials. To exit Kids Mode, select the Kids Mode icon in the toolbar and then "Exit Kids Mode window" from the menu.
One of the main differentiating factors between Kids Mode and regular Internet browsing is that the former limits access to sites in the allow list. The list is prefilled with sites and parents have options to add more sites to the list, e.g. to add a school site or another resource.
Sites that are not on the allow list will show a block page. An option to request the site to be accessed is available, but it requires that the owner of the account enters the device credentials to allow access for the browsing session.
Regular users may manage sites on the allow list under Menu > Settings > Family. There they need to select "Manage allowed sites in Kids Mode" to see the list of allowed sites.
Websites can be added to the list and existing ones can be removed from the list as well.
Closing Words
Kids Mode provides young children with a locked-in environment of sites that they may access. Parents should go through the list of sites provided by Microsoft to make sure that these are appropriate, and may need to adjust the listing based on their children's interests and needs.
Advertisement may still be displayed to children while they use Kids Mode; the installation of a content blocker may help in this regard.
Kids Mode may be launched for other languages in the future, likely with a language-specific list of sites in the allow list.
Google Chrome includes options to create profiles for children in the browser which are limited in several ways. Search results are set to the highest filter setting and parents may access the list of sites their children accessed while using the browser. The browser does not restrict access to an allow list though in the mode.
Now You: What is your take on Kids Mode?


Doesn’t Windows 8 know that www. or http:// are passe ?
Well it is a bit difficulty to distinguish between name.com domains and files for instance.
I know a service made by google that is similar to Google bookmarks.
http://www.google.com/saved
@Ashwin–Thankful you delighted my comment; who knows how many “gamers” would have disagreed!
@Martin
The comments section under this very article (3 comments) is identical to the comments section found under the following article:
https://www.ghacks.net/2023/08/15/netflix-is-testing-game-streaming-on-tvs-and-computers/
Not sure what the issue is, but have seen this issue under some other articles recently but did not report it back then.
Omg a badge!!!
Some tangible reward lmao.
It sucks that redditors are going to love the fuck out of it too.
With the cloud, there is no such thing as unlimited storage or privacy. Stop relying on these tech scums. Purchase your own hardware and develop your own solutions.
This is a certified reddit cringe moment. Hilarious how the article’s author tries to dress it up like it’s anything more than a png for doing the reddit corporation’s moderation work for free (or for bribes from companies and political groups)
Almost al unlmited services have a real limit.
And this comment is written on the dropbox article from August 25, 2023.
First comment > @ilev said on August 4, 2012 at 7:53 pm
For the God’s sake, fix the comments soon please! :[
Yes. Please. Fix the comments.
With Google Chrome, it’s only been 1,500 for some time now.
Anyone who wants to force me in such a way into buying something that I can get elsewhere for free will certainly never see a single dime from my side. I don’t even know how stupid their marketing department is to impose these limits on users instead of offering a valuable product to the paying faction. But they don’t. Even if you pay, you get something that is also available for free elsewhere.
The algorithm has also become less and less savvy in terms of e.g. English/German translations. It used to be that the bot could sort of sense what you were trying to say and put it into different colloquialisms, which was even fun because it was like, “I know what you’re trying to say here, how about…” Now it’s in parts too stupid to translate the simplest sentences correctly, and the suggestions it makes are at times as moronic as those made by Google Translations.
If this is a deep-learning AI that learns from users’ translations and the phrases they choose most often – which, by the way, is a valuable, moneys worthwhile contribution of every free user to this project: They invest their time and texts, thereby providing the necessary data for the AI to do the thing as nicely as they brag about it in the first place – alas, the more unprofessional users discovered the translator, the worse the language of this deep-learning bot has become, the greater the aggregate of linguistically illiterate users has become, and the worse the language of this deep-learning bot has become, as it now learns the drivel of every Tom, Dick and Harry out there, which is why I now get their Mickey Mouse language as suggestions: the inane language of people who can barely spell the alphabet, it seems.
And as a thank you for our time and effort in helping them and their AI learn, they’ve lowered the limit from what was once 5,000 to now 1,500…? A big “fuck off” from here for that! Not a brass farthing from me for this attitude and behaviour, not in a hundred years.
When will you put an end to the mess in the comments?
Ghacks comments have been broken for too long. What article did you see this comment on? Reply below. If we get to 20 different articles we should all stop using the site in protest.
I posted this on [https://www.ghacks.net/2023/09/28/reddit-enforces-user-activity-tracking-on-site-to-push-advertising-revenue/] so please reply if you see it on a different article.
Comment redirected me to [https://www.ghacks.net/2012/08/04/add-search-the-internet-to-the-windows-start-menu/] which seems to be the ‘real’ article it is attached to
Comment redirected me to [https://www.ghacks.net/2012/08/04/add-search-the-internet-to-the-windows-start-menu/] which seems to be the ‘real’ article it is attached to
Article Title: Reddit enforces user activity tracking on site to push advertising revenue
Article URL: https://www.ghacks.net/2023/09/28/reddit-enforces-user-activity-tracking-on-site-to-push-advertising-revenue/
No surprises here. This is just the beginning really. I cannot see a valid reason as to why anyone would continue to use the platform anymore when there are enough alternatives fill that void.
I’m not sure if there is a point in commenting given that comments seem to appear under random posts now, but I’ll try… this comment is for https://www.ghacks.net/2023/09/28/reddit-enforces-user-activity-tracking-on-site-to-push-advertising-revenue/
My temporary “solution”, if you can call it that, is to use a VPN (Mullvad in my case) to sign up for and access Reddit via a European connection. I’m doing that with pretty much everything now, at least until the rest of the world catches up with GDPR. I don’t think GDPR is a magical privacy solution but it’s at least a first step.