What program would limit a user's functionality to surfing only

September 13, 2005 12:22 PM

What programs would limit computer use for anonymous users? I was at a business that offered free Internet - the computers allowed http/s/ surfing only, no "Start" button, no CTRL-ALT-DEL, nothing to get into the directory structures- what was that program?
posted by petebest to Computers & Internet (13 answers total)

Best answer: Probably something like SiteKiosk, I'd bet.
posted by Optimus Chyme at 12:38 PM on September 13, 2005

Its called kiosk mode. Do a google search for "kiosk mode Internet Explorer" or "kiosk mode firefox".

Its not actually a different program, its just windows running with the browser as the shell, instead of the usual windows explorer shell, plus some other tweaks.
posted by gus at 12:40 PM on September 13, 2005

you can start IE's kiosk mode from the command line by typing "iexplore -k", but that is not immune to Ctrl-Alt-Del or even from browsing directory structures. It's got to be a separate program.
posted by pmbuko at 12:54 PM on September 13, 2005

I know my local library uses Fortres 101 for all of its public computers.
posted by Emperor Yamamoto's Eggs at 1:09 PM on September 13, 2005

Well, idealy you should first setup windows with limited use accounts, and then set it to boot into those account automaticaly.

Even with access to the start menu, etc, they'll never be able to damage the machine, no matter what they do (in theory anyway). This is OS-level security, and it's really the best thing to do.

If you do that, you won't need to block alt-ctrl-delete either.
posted by delmoi at 1:18 PM on September 13, 2005

you can also replace explorer.exe with 'iexplore -k' as the windows shell.
posted by delmoi at 1:18 PM on September 13, 2005

[sidebar]

You can also toggle between IE's kiosk mode and standard mode using the F11 key.

/[sidebar]
posted by grateful at 1:39 PM on September 13, 2005

You can also toggle between IE's kiosk mode and standard mode using the F11 key.

kiosk mode = no nav bar at top
F11 = nav bar is present at top
posted by whatisish at 2:54 PM on September 13, 2005

F11 is just full screen mode (for both IE and Mozilla/Firefox), it's not for security or anything.
posted by exhilaration at 5:21 PM on September 13, 2005

Be aware that if you use kiosk mode in a browser and not a dedicated program that replaces the shell, etc, there is absolutely no security from user intrusion.
posted by Optimus Chyme at 7:52 PM on September 13, 2005

fwiw, this is something you can do with a group policy as well, and that's built into Windows 2000 and XP (and the server versions - it's technically really an Active Directory feature but you can apply them to local computers too). with some clever fiddling with directory permissions and stuff you should be able to deny the user access to anything on the system too.
posted by mrg at 9:12 PM on September 13, 2005

Response by poster: I think what I saw was more like the SiteKiosk link that Optiimus posted. Good points about permissions (and I didn't know about kiosk mode either) though.

Thanks everyone!
posted by petebest at 11:43 AM on September 14, 2005

Has anybody tried the LiveKiosk Linux thing? I also found this site about setting up public web stations.
posted by davy at 11:32 PM on September 14, 2005