Disabling IE?

arnisador

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We want to get the kids PCs/laptops for their rooms this year, but we don't want them web-browsing in private. (They can use the machine in the living room for that.) It's not just the inappropriate sites that concerns us--they'd go to Yahoo! games and never leave their rooms except for meals and using the bathroom (and the second one is just a 'maybe').

We could simply not install networking, but we'd like to set up a basic mail client like Agent and let them check their e-mail and reply to it there. In my experience, though, Windows won't let IE be removed. I've tried deleting it before as I use FireFox and at one point needed the disk space--it kept coming back.

Is there a way to remove or disable the browser? My kids are not compter-savvy enough to re-enable it, nor am I concerned that they'd try. But I don't want it available, or opening from a URL in an e-mail, etc. I suppose I could always try to force it to use a non-existent proxy or something like that--in other words, intentionally misconfigure it--but I was hoping for a 'cleaner' solution. Of course disabling it is best since some day I may want to download a patch or something onto their machines. Can I set up an account that lacks that privelege (what is it, port 80)?
 

shesulsa

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Hmmm ... you could go ahead and network them and install a net nanny program or simple security program that will deny them access to all browsers.
 

OnlyAnEgg

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The difficulty here is that IE is integrated with the OS at almost every level. You can open up any directory and type in a net address in the address bar and off you go.

Net Nanny can do wonders, though.
 

shesulsa

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arnisador said:
Oh, can you do that? I didn't know they had a 100% blocking option!

I don't have one, but I have friends who do and swear by them!
 

Kreth

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For XP: Setup accounts for the kids, and password the default admin account. Then disable their access to the file mshtml.dll in windows\system32. IE will act like it can't find the website.
 

Andrew Green

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Block everything but port 110 (POP3) and 25 (SMTP) all they will be able to do is send and recieve e-mails. nothing else will get through
 
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arnisador

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That's the way I was thinking originally (block port 80)...maybe I'll try that first.
 

Andrew Green

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You should be able to do it with your wireless router. It's firewall functions can block out whatever you want.
 
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arnisador

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We'd have four machines hooked up to it, two of which would need to have full access...I can do this machine-by-machine?
 

bignick

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arnisador said:
We'd have four machines hooked up to it, two of which would need to have full access...I can do this machine-by-machine?

You should be able to, what type of router do you have?
 

BlueDragon1981

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Kreth, with answers like that you should be jumping onto BuffaloIT. http://www.buffaloit.com

If you did what Kreth and Andrew said I think they would have a hard time getting the browser to work. You may run into some problems however shutting off ports and not compromising other areas of windows. Not saying that will be a problem but it could happen.

I think it would be secure enough doing what Kreth said, then installing a net nanny in case by some ingenious idea they get in their head they get it working, you could still have net nanny on their for a backup....never to much security when it comes to kids and teens....they tend to find ways around things....lol.
 

Kreth

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BlueDragon1981 said:
Kreth, with answers like that you should be jumping onto BuffaloIT.
I've been thinking of signing up over there. Due to RL, I've been pretty scarce here lately, so I wanted to make sure I could cover my responsibilities here before jumping into anything new.
 

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