The Download Blog

KidZui's closed-system browser for children upgrades to version 4, but fans of the program won't notice many changes initially. Available for Windows and Mac and as a Firefox extension, the update encompasses a range of changes, including optimization for Netbooks, client- and server-side caching, simplified animations, and a number of bug fixes. Most importantly, the program is supposed to run faster, although that was hard to judge from 10 minutes of use. It's not slower, though.

KidZui 4 looks a lot like KidZui 3, but with a few options to better control the clutter.

(Credit: Screenshot by Seth Rosenblatt/CNET)

The big changes that kids and their parents will pick up on mainly involve smoother integration between the interface and the features. There's now a grid button on the bottom right that allows kids to jump back to their most recent search results after they've proceeded to a page. Videos now can be set to auto-play in the default mode as well as the maximized "Go Big" mode. The Explore and Friends navigation bars on the left and right side are now minimizable, expanding screen real estate for larger video and image viewing. This last change is significant since KidZui's interface can often feel cluttered and chaotic.

Changes to the social-networking tools include removing online/offline notifications from the Event stream in MyKidZui, which creates more space for tags and sharing with friends. Kids can also add an unlimited number of channels to keep track of. Overall, though, the program feels like it hasn't changed much since version 3, and that's a good thing for fans.

KidZui for Windows and Mac seems like a kid-ified browser with social networking rolled in. Children can find their favorite YouTube videos, rate content using tags, and share opinions with other KidZui friends, all from a colorful interface with big buttons and labels. KidZui is anything but a standard childrens' browser, though, and what makes it so unique is precisely why it's such a safe tool for children.

KidZui is a closed system, not filter-driven, so all content that's available has been approved by editors into a whitelist database. Children can explore the Internet by using the search/URI bar, or search by a left-navigation sidebar that's organized by topics including science, movies and TV, games, sports, and animals. Just below the search bar are three tabs, for Web browsing, Photos, and Video.

Parental registration is required before your child can create "Zui," in the program's parlance. Children can customize their avatars to a limited degree in the free version, with more options available via a paid upgrade. Free KidZui is fully functional, but upgrading definitely offers more. Among the additions: children get more content rating tags, more avatar clothing, and more backgrounds, while parents get the capability to block individual sites, can view an unlimited history of the child's browsing, and can force-add sites to their children's favorites list.

KidZui offers children one of the safest Web browsing methods I've seen. Parents get the peace of mind that their children are both learning and having fun without relinquishing their role as the final arbiter of the Internet experience. If you're hesitant, KidZui offers a Firefox extension that replicates the KidZui experience in Mozilla's browser.

I'm going on vacation for the next few weeks, so this will be the last Featured Freeware until January 2009. You can peruse the past nine months of Featured Freeware here. Have a happy and safe holidays!

KidZui, the child-safe browser maker, has put out a Firefox extension that offers all the functionality of its standalone browser right inside of Firefox.

Once installed and activated by a parent, it locks the child (or anyone else for that matter) out of accessing non-Kidzui approved sites, or other areas of the computer, by taking up the entire screen. A password, which is chosen by the parent, is the only way to exit the KidZui browsing experience, essentially turning your computer into a kid-friendly Internet kiosk.

The browser extension has full support for the company's paid subscription service, which runs around $40 a year. Paying users get a few additional features like being able to white list certain sites, track children's browsing history on a per-session basis, along with a tool that will figure out what your kids are into based on that history.

What's really interesting here is this is one of the few times a standalone browser has been rolled up as an extension for another browser. Of the many variants which are built on top of mainstream browsers, there's the lingering question whether the same experience could simply be offered on top of someone else's product. With something like Flock or Maxthon, this would likely be underwhelming, however, in KidZui's execution it appears to be a smart play at getting more users onboard.

KidZui's standalone browser experience comes to Firefox with a new extension that keeps kids from visiting sites or accessing parts of your computer you don't want them to.

(Credit: KidZui)

When you first look at it, KidZui seems a bit like a kiddified Flock, a Web browser with social networking rolled in. Children using Windows or Macs can find their favorite YouTube videos, rate content using tags, and share opinions, all from a colorful interface with big buttons and clear, clean labeling.

Billing itself as "the Internet for kids," it turns out that KidZui is anything but a standard kids' browser, and what makes it so unique is precisely why it's such a safe tool for children to use.

What you see when you log in to KidZui.

(Credit: CNET Networks)

KidZui is a closed system of pre-approved content, and although it seems to function like a browser, there's no way to use it to access the Internet directly. Instead, all the content that's available from KidZui has been approved by a group of editors. These moonlighting parents, teachers, and retired teachers started from a database built by a spider that checked dmoz directories across the Internet--similar to how Yahoo searches the Web. From there, they looked at each video, image, and Web site that KidZui lets children see, and then added the safe ones to an age-delineated whitelist. Four-year-olds, for example, can not see content that 10-year-olds can.

When KidZui launched in March 2008, the list of approved content included around 500,000 sites that, according to KidZui's chairman and CEO Cliff Boro, took two years to build. Eight months on, that's now expanded to more than a million pieces of content, with 50 editors still contracted to review new material and purge links that have changed or are dead.

Being closed doesn't mean that that the KidZui experience is limited. More secure than a haphazardly-applied algorithm from a Web blocker, but less limiting in part because it includes kid-appropriate social networking, KidZui in many ways seems to offer a more comprehensive Internet experience to children.

The Zui, the KidZui avatar, features customizations that draw kids in.

(Credit: CNET Networks)

The basic version is free, and includes a solid core of features for both children and their justifiably worried parents. Remember the old use of Whitehouse.com, and how easy it was to get there by mistyping whitehouse.gov?

Since KidZui is closed to actual browsing, accidentally or intentionally reaching improper content means that's no longer an issue. There are three main tools for kids to explore the Internet with. There's a search bar at the top, a left-nav sidebar organized by topics including science, movies and TV, games, sports, and animals, and a bottom scroll bar that shows your most frequently-viewed Web sites. KidZui's URI bar includes predictive text similar to Firefox, Chrome, and Opera, but only for the pre-approved content. Below the URI bar are tabs for your default Welcome page, Games, New, Most Popular, and Most Tagged.

Once you start looking at content, three new tabs replace the default five. The Photo and Video tabs work much like Google's Image and Video searches, where you type into the URI bar what you're looking for and the tab automatically narrows it down to the specific type of content that you want under that topic. The Web tab allows for more open, Web browser-style exploration of the whitelisted content.

The right-side nav is taken up by the social-networking features, but again there's little cause for concern by parents. Kids can not e-mail or instant message each other, and there is no personal information that gets revealed when your child "friends" another. They can only see each other's avatars, known as Zuis within the program, usernames, and recently viewed or recently tagged content. By emphasizing the sharing of likes and dislikes as they pertain to videos, photos, and Web sites, and eliminating the ability to communicate directly, KidZui is able to keep the kids who use it focused on positive experiences.

KidZui also hopes to keep kids from being distracted by other local content on the computer by always running in a maximized, full-screen window. It also requires two clicks on the Exit button on the bottom right to fully log out, and parents can require that they enter in their username and password to prevent kids from accessing the rest of the computer.

After the parent has registered KidZui, the child needs to create an online identity. Kids can customize their avatars clothing, skin, face, and hair to a limited degree in the free version, with more options available if you upgrade. The more kids explore via KidZui, the more choices get unlocked, including background options, additional emoticon tags, and Zui customizations. Parents get weekly updates on all the sites that their kids have been looking at.

MyZui pages let kids create their own channels and see where they've been.

(Credit: CNET Networks)

Free KidZui is fully functional, but the paid version definitely offers more to both parents and kids. Among the additions, children get more tags for rating content, more avatar clothing, and more backgrounds, while parents get the ability to block individual sites, and can view an unlimited history of the child's browsing. Parents who upgrade can also add Web sites, such as a personal family site, that they approve of on their own through the parental control panel. Upgrading also gains access to a Homework Helper feature, too, divided by subject and academic level from pre-school through eighth grade.

There's no such thing as perfect software, and KidZui is no exception to the rule. I noticed that when you're using the program in Windows, you can use the ALT+Tab hot key combo to access other concurrently running programs. On Vista, this can be used to gain access to the desktop. Walt Mossberg found a somewhat circuitous way to turn up a story on the Eliot Spitzer sex scandal when he looked at the program when it launched.

Even with these holes, KidZui looks as effective as anything I've seen at balancing the dual concerns at play when trying to educate kids with and about the Internet. It's important and difficult to give them the freedom to explore and learn how to use the Web while creating an environment that parents can feel they have control and influence over. KidZui beautifully manages to navigate those concerns and their implications, and is a must for any parent with children under the age of 13 to check out.

If you're one of the millions of people who does some occasional Web browsing while at work, chances are sooner or later you're going to click on something you probably shouldn't. In most cases, you don't know what you're getting into until it's too late--a situation developer Pratham Kumar (maker of the now defunct 2View) has solved with a small and simple Firefox extension called No-NSFW (download).

Dangerous links are flagged as NSFW.

Once installed it will give you the heads-up every time you mouse over a link. You'll get a small warning in the lower right hand corner of your browser that either marks it safe (SFW) or not safe (NSFW) with color coding to match. If someone hasn't voted on a page, it's simply left unrated.

Other people with the extension curate the ratings. To vote on a site you're on, you just need to click the small eyeglass button right by where the warnings pop up and mark the page. Each time users vote on a page, those votes are tallied up--a number that will shift with the tide of its safety rating.

The extension works with both Firefox 2 and the latest beta of Firefox 3.

One of Power Downloader's pet personal computer peeves is the Safely Remove Hardware icon that pops up and nags him anytime he removes a device. External hard drive, thumb drive, a USB-powered fan--there's no escaping that pesky pop-up.

Except, of course, there is a solution. In fact, there are two easy solutions, says Power Downloader: One uses a small program, while the other involves tweaking the QuickLaunch bar's properties.

The tiny and free program called Icon Remover comes with two functions: a button to remove the Safely Remove Hardware icon, and a second button to restore it. That's all the app does, but it's certainly the simplest way to tame that unruly icon. Simple and effective, it's a reasonable way to solve the problem without having to remember various twists and turns in the QuickLaunch properties box.

The QuickLaunch bar properties give users control over pop-up icon behavior.

(Credit: CNET Networks)

If that labyrinthine pathway to icon removal appeals to you, or if you prefer to not download a 500KB program for such a tiny issue, there is a way to access that icon's behavior from within Windows that doesn't involve hacking the Registry. Right-click on the QuickLaunch bar in the tiny space below the clock, and select Properties from the context menu that appears.

Under the Notification area, hit Customize and then scroll through the choices until you see Safely Remove Hardware. Change the default setting of Hide When Inactive to Always Hide--you've now taught that annoying pop-up to stay down, and you've prevented one of Power Downloader's pet peeves from becoming your own.

Editor's note: This article was updated on February 21, 2008. The original was published on February 28, 2007.

Like its mythical namesake (dramatized in Lego), whatever crawls out of a digital Trojan horse will be a nasty surprise. A Trojan horse usually takes the form of an innocuous software program that unleashes a flood of malware or viruses after it's installed and run. Since attacks and ease of removal vary--an ad generator is easier to remove than a stealth rootkit--there's no one-size-fits-all solution. However, there are some common spyware removal techniques that can help you pick your way through the wreckage.

Reboot Windows in Safe Mode

What is Safe Mode?
Safe Mode is a diet version of the Standard Mode of Windows that your computer ordinarily runs. Rebooting in Safe Mode loads minimal programs and disables most device drivers that manage hardware like CD drives and printers. The result is a more stable iteration of the Windows operating system that's better suited for disabling malware while you perform a system scan.

How do you use it?
If you can, follow the necessary steps for a safe shutdown process and then reboot. When you restart Windows, as the screen begins to load, press F8 repeatedly until the Windows booting options appear. Select "Boot in Safe Mode" from the menu of options. Once in Safe Mode, you should be able to run your installed antispyware software with less interference from the malicious software that the Trojan brought onto your system.

System Restore

What is System Restore?
System Restore strings out a safety net if everything goes kaput. Under default Window settings, System Restore saves a snapshot of your computer configuration once a day and on major upgrades that can be used to replace corrupted files. In the event of a Trojan attack, System Restore can revert Windows to a previous, uninfected state. It won't restore everything, like changes to your user profile, but it does reinstate biggies like your Registry and DLL cache.

When do you use it?
When purging your computer of spyware, System Restore has an optimal time and place. You wouldn't want your computer including corrupted files as the reference point of the day, so it's important to disable System Restore before you start cleaning. You can reactivate it once your system is spick-and-span.

How do you use it?
The paths for accessing System Restore differ by operating system. In Windows XP, disable System Restore by right-clicking My Computer and selecting Properties. Under the Performance tab, select File System, then the Troubleshooting tab, and finally check Disable System Restore. You'll be prompted to reboot. Follow these steps to uncheck the box before restoring your system.

To use System Restore after scrubbing your computer, choose Accessories from the program list in the Start menu. You'll find System Restore under System Tools.

This comprehensive article from TechRepublic demonstrates how to create and use System Restore in Windows Vista.

Scan with antivirus/antispyware apps
Downloading diagnostic and removal tools with an infected computer is a huge time sink--spyware can cripple your speed and Internet access. The Trojan's payload could prevent EXE files from downloading or launching. Also, malware can affect the performance of installed security software on your PC. If you store your antivirus/antispyware programs on a CD or flash drive, however, those malware-busting apps can commence their swashbuckling unhindered.... Read more

A new security company, Haute Secure, is offering a free beta version of its safe surfing toolbar for Internet Explorer that blocks malware from downloading onto your desktop. Firefox support is expected soon. Entering an already crowded field, the Haute Secure toolbar hopes to distinguish itself by taking the best of Exploit Prevention Labs Linkscanner Pro and McAfee SiteAdvisor, and then adds additional layers of protection. If they can pull it off with the final release, Haute Secure could be a must-have add-on for both Internet Explorer and Firefox.

The Haute Secure toolbar hooks into 70 processes running on your Windows XP or Windows Vista machine. Forty of these are related to browsers (in the initial release, Internet Explorer). The remaining hooks will be used for specific applications such as Microsoft Office PowerPoint and Adobe Acrobat.

Unlike McAfee SiteAdvisor, which tends to block an infected site entirely, Haute Secure allows access to the page after stripping out the malicious elements. And unlike SiteAdvisor, Haute Secure doesn't use a database, but analyzes each page on the fly, similar to the approach used by Linkscanner Pro.

And like Linkscanner Pro, the Haute Secure toolbar is also able to block specific elements of a page that are deemed malicious, allowing you to view the page safely. Haute Secure also uses phishing reports from Stopbadware.org, and can warn you of fraudulent sites, although in initial testing Linkscanner Pro blocked more phishing sites than did Haute Secure on our test machine.

In addition to proactive scanning, the Haute Secure toolbar also uses white and black lists to block known bad sites. Haute Secure was founded in 2006 by former Microsoft security engineers.