I work for a High School implimenting new hardware and software for the district. Right now, the standard browser is Netscape 4.7 and the standard software is Macintosh. We have some Windows machines... and some Internet Explorer browsers...

Just a few questions, requests...

Will it be possible to prevent modifications of any preferences unless a certain password is entered? This would prevent children from messing up configurations...

Can downloads be eliminated? Children can download the strangest things sometimes (exe, zip, mp3 files, etc). It would be nice if they couldn't download anything...

Will there be a Windows and Mac version? Will the Windows version totally replace Internet Explorer (so that students couldn't just launch that to get on the internet)?

Is there a way to disable e-mail and chat clients in your browser?

How long will it take before you reach a completely stable release?

That is all the questions I have for now...

"Will there be a Windows [version]... "

Well, that's what K-Meleon is...

"...and Mac version?"

You might want to check out: http://chimera.mozdev.org/

"Is there a way to disable e-mail and chat clients in your browser?"

Have you actually ever used K-Meleon? There are no such things in KM. Thankfully.

"How long will it take before you reach a completely stable release?"

I'd consider the current version as pretty stable.

Unfortunately M$ makes a lot of stuff dependent on IE, including OS updates. So removing it (to keep your kids from using it) is a bit of a challenge.

However, contrary to M$'s claims, IE can be removed from Windows, but as the versions get higher it gets harder. Piece of cake in Win95, harder but possible in Win98 (98Lite, ROM).

Can you rip IE out of Win2K, ME, and XP? I don't know. I don't use them and I hope I never will. Maybe someone else here knows whether these later versions of Windoze can be relieved of their Enternet Excluder burden.

win2k - yes (IEradicator)
win2k sp1 - yes (IEradicator)
win2k sp2 - not yet but will be added
winxp home/pro - not yet but will be added
check on http://litepc.net for 2000-xp lite which will be out soon...
Brian

Did I miss something that Golden tiger said, as I don't recall seeing anything mentioned about removing IE from Windows Me, 2000 or XP.

Let me see again, nope, no mention of it.

What they do say is:
"Will there be a Windows and Mac version? Will the Windows version totally replace Internet Explorer (so that students couldn't just launch that to get on the internet)?"

Well that has to do with setting K-Meleon as the default browser, and just removing the shortcuts to IE from the Start menu, desktop etc. It doesn't have to be removed completely. Especially considering that what we are dealing with here are school computers.

I would say that it does have to be removed completely, especially since we're dealing with school computers. Kids are clever. We had some "locked down" computers in my high school. I had free reign of them, plus some of the servers they were accessing for applications, within about half an hour of just messing around with them. If you really don't want kids running IE, you'd better remove it from the system...

They can just go Start>Run and type in iexplore and there you go you got IE. So it has to be completely removed and IEradicator is the answer.

Oh well, whatever Golden Tiger chooses to do. I might also recommend to Golden Tiger to check out these webpages which provide information on limiting access to computers in public places.
Public Access Computer Security

Even our friend Andrew Mutch has a page about limiting features in IE:
Andrew's Page on Securing IE

Let me try that second link again:
Even our friend Andrew Mutch has a page about limiting features in IE:
Andrew's Page on Securing IE

Grmph! Oh well, here's the link for Andrew's Page:
http://tln.lib.mi.us/~amutch/pro/ie/
Just cut and paste the link if the forum doesn't convert it to a hypertext link.

When I installed (run?) IEradicator it did remove IE, but did not remove the capability of Windows Explorer to open web pages (enter http://.... ). I suppose the underlying IE is still there with all its security holes.

AFAIK IEradicator removes IE but not the html rendering engine because it is used in other applications (certain help pages for instance)...

Yeah, IE-Radicator much like it's sibling 98lite, leaves behind files like mshtml.dll so as html-based help files can still be viewed from within Windows Explorer.

For the moment, and I certainly don't mind plugging this, under Windows98/98SE, Revenge of Mozilla II is the only program in town which *completely* removes Internet Explorer and every file associated with it from Windows98. It also removes all the registry entries as well.

btw, as it just so happens, I run a ROM II Yahoo! group which hosts the ROM II files for download, if you happen to be interested :-)
http://au.groups.yahoo.com/group/mozillasrevenge/

You bet I am ! ;-)

I have heard of a possible solution to the IE problem on the Public Web Browser email list. Their solution is Manage IE, a dll file that loads as a Browser Helper Object. According to the ReadMe:

" When IE starts ManageIE sends IE a message to quit."

If you want to try ManageIE, you can get it off the Team Software web site (http://teamsoftware.bizland.com/) in the downloads section. I have not yet tried it though.

John

"sends IE a message to quit." - That sounds good

A password protected mode would be good, in which the browser was stripped down to the go menu, File > Exit... Copy Cut Paste and no more.

Hmm....
I don't know if anyone installed XP yet.
I have done once (and removed it 1 day after it, because a game crashed in it).
If you go to Add/Remove Prgrams -> Windows Setup, there somewhere (I don't know where anymore, but I think communications of Internet), you just can click off IE...
XP is the most easiest OS for uninstalleing IE, of not installing, as you can do that during the install of XP.
This is for the Professional Edition (Dutch).

Unfortunitly, I've found some sites that wont work in K-Meleon so I'm keeping IE. My friends always go onto http://www.chat.co.uk and it wont work in KM

> A password protected mode would be good,
> in which the browser was stripped down A
> password protected mode would be good,
> in which the browser was stripped down to
> the go menu, File > Exit... Copy Cut Paste
> and no more.

What of this "mode" can be achived by simply using a modified user interface?

The "go" menu can be used to explore the local disk, and execute local programs (e.g: command)

What else is required to protect against that? Any simple way to block local programs execution?