@DoritoStyle Hi! Just to let you know the reject reason given by Allan is one of the standard reasons provided by Stack Exchange when reviewing suggested edits. The wording might have been a little harsh for the specific edit you've linked, but when reviewing there's a fixed list of reasons to choose from which automatically ‘reply’ with that reason for the rejection.

@grg oh! Oops. My apologies to Allan.

Hi folks, are there any users here who are IT Admins in schools that are all Mac (like me)? I am looking for colleagues that I can confer with on various issues that bridge school needs and apple tech.

@zeeple I don't know of any specifically for IT Admins in schools, but I have helped administrators before and many of the people here can try to help. If you have a specific question(s) please ask.

What about safari extensions for mac os that can filter content? It would need to be password protected so that students cannot just turn off the filter.

@zeeple I would use network based solution.

Block all ports except what you need. (80,443)

If your students are really good then you'll need a DPI tool. Set it to prevent any and all SSH traffic. (Of course adapt this if you use SSH)

I hear you, and I do. I have a filter on my firewall, but I want a second layer at the browser. In the Chrome world there is a great filter called Block Site which allows to either whitelist or blacklist, had an adult filter, and can be locked down with a password so students cannot disable it, but there doesn't seem to be an equivalent in the safari world (big surprise, right?)

I am currently in High School and they have awful security so please don't be one of those schools.

I thank you for taking time to research and ask questions :)

@zeeple Erm. I can think of a couple ways to bypass that (not 100% sure, I don't often work with Chrome Extensions). I would think Safari does have some kind of extension but probably not at good as Chrome.

But the next level after network would probably be Computer based, not Browser.

@zeeple Are the Macs laptops or desktops? And does each student get one, if so, do they ever take it home?

We are not a one to one school, so students grab computers out of a pool. I hear what you are saying about the computer being the next layer not the app (or browser) but I was thinking about using various browsers to filter in different ways. Canary would be a whitelist browser, so only two or three sites would open and the rest be blocked. Chrome would be a blacklist browser, blocking sites expressly forbidden by school policy and then allowing the rest thru, etc. Thats my hope anyway.

I think I'll straight up block safari and firefox from even launching

@zeeple I wouldn't suggest that. Depending on how you have it configured a student good extremely easily bypass that

Yup, I think I'd be plugging holes in the strategy for a while. I am still going to explore it tho and see how far I get with it. Sadly, Safari just doesn't have the developer base that chrome does and there are no similar extensions for it that I could find.

@zeeple Some possible issues (assuming the students are NOT admins): 1. Disk Image with browser. 2. Flash Drive with browser 3. Downloading another browser application (no DMG) 4. Many applications provide a web browser built in (including SMART notebook (some schools use that tool))

@JBis Thanks for the input! I'll tack those on my list of things to cover while I am exploring solutions!

@zeeple glad I could help :)