Today we shipped ASTROSAFE (Prev. URSOR) parental controls. An easy to use set of switches that give parents the power to decide how their children use our product. Below is a list of what we’ve implemented. But first, a bit about the thought process behind this feature.

At the crux of the challenges with letting kids explore the Internet with a safe browser and search engine for children is the fact that parents have little visibility over what their children are exposed to.

Current solutions are complex and convoluted. We’ve done our best to create guides for parents on how to block websites on your Kids iPad or iPhone in 2024 and the 3 simple parenting rules for tech and kids, but we don’t think these are enough. We want to make these controls as simple as pressing a button. Here’s what we did.

‍Search off/on - with a simple switch, parents are able to turn our search engine feature on and off. We have shipped our own safe search engine, where children can only browse links from our own directory of approved links, but we understand some parents may not want this function at all, and would instead be more comfortable with their children browsing specific content added by them. This control takes care of it.

Video off/on - Many parents are happy with their children consuming good content online, but may not want videos to be consumed. We’ve turned ads and recommender systems within YouTube off completely, but for parents that want to remove videos from their child's Internet experience entirely, this switch provides a super simple solution. Easy to find. Easy to implement.

‍Explore off/on - As well as our own safe search directory, the URSOR team have a shortlist of specific links for kids curated by theme, covering space, science, math, nature and beyond. These links are available inside of the Explore Tab. We do however understand that some parents only want their children to browse content they have added themselves, so we’re giving parents the ability to turn our Explore Feature off completely.

‍Edit Explore Links - Still in the context of URSOR curated links for the Explore Feature, we also give parents the ability to hide or show individually picked links from the Explore tab with a simple tap. This is useful if you want to show only math games inside of the explore tab, or coding games for example, and can help kids focus on specific subjects during their time online with astrosafe.co.

We hope you find these features useful, and don’t hesitate to give us your feedback!

With Love,

Team ASTROSAFE (Prev. URSOR)