Microsoft has announced that it is adding a Kids Mode on its Edge web browser for safer browsing. According to the company, this will let children browse the web in a child-friendly, customisable manner. The mode is currently being rolled out in US English on both Windows and macOS.
The new Kids Mode will add a number of “safety guardrails” to ensure that children browsing the internet have a harmless experience. It will set Bing SafeSearch to ‘strict’ by default, add custom themes, provides kid-friendly content and sets a password protected exit screen.
Note: Microsoft Edge users are not required to have a child account or profile to access Kids Mode.
How to enable Kids Mode
- Open Microsoft Edge and tap on the profile icon located on the top left corner next to the search bar.
- Select the ‘Browse in Kids Mode’ option.
- Choose the appropriate age from the options: 5-8 years and 9 and older.
- The Kids Mode will now open on your web browser.
- To exit, click the Kids Mode icon located inside the top bar.
- Select the ‘Exit Kids Mode’ option.
- Enter your User ID password to exit.
You can also set specific websites that your kids can visit from inside the Windows Settings. There you can also enable other family-friendly features from there.
Apart from this, Microsoft has also rolled out adaptive notification requests. This feature has been developed by studying crowdsourced data from all Edge browser users who allow Microsoft to collect data from them. With all of this data, the company has developed a scoring system to determine which sites’ notifications had a negative response from users and which ones got positive feedback. This then helps it in stopping showing notification requests from websites that other users don’t prefer to see.
Both of these features have been rolled out with Microsoft Edge 88 Stable update. You can update to this version from the Windows Update panel.