Since I promised a review…
So… it’s cool and all, but not for our family.
First of all, if you plan to use it, I highly suggest putting in on a computer or profile you won’t often use. It uses Firefox, and it will lock yours if you install it on your profile. I found it very time consuming to manage the favorites list for three kids. You can favorite something for all three at once, but then you have to go into each child’s profile and tweak it to get rid of the stuff that Glubble has deemed safe to begin with (Sorry Glubble. Pokemon isn’t in our house.) and there is no way to change the start page. so if you block something they had deemed “safe” because you don’t really like it *cough Sponge Bob cough*, the icon is still there, taunting your kids. I also found it frustrating when I wanted to block a small portion of a website, yet due to the way the website was setup, I couldn’t or I’d be blocking what I wanted the kids to use (honestly, not Glubble’s fault). The thumbnails at the top for the little kids, while it worked great for showing thePinkDiva where to go next, they took up so much screen space, even when collapsed. Suddenly you couldn’t see the whole game at Starfall.com, and had to scroll up and down to get to the places to click. Not cool. Plus, the thumbnails didn’t always generate, so we were left big empty spaces and no way of knowing where the link pointed until we clicked. But hey! At least it was all parent approved, right?
I can see how this would be great for a family with young kids who haven’t been on the internet yet. The parental controls are awesome, especially if you’ve got kids you can’t trust not to be looking for naughy things online. All but what you the parent have approved, is blocked. And if your kid wants access, they have to email you for permission, or call you over to the computer to give them access.
But for our family, well, our kids are geeks. This browser, and yes, Glubble hijacks Firefox into something totally different so it is almost like a new browser, but this one just irritated my 4 year old. My 4 year old, people. So for us, we’ve reverted back to Firefox. But I can trust my kids (for now). They only go to the places I’ve bookmarked in their toolbars, mostly Nick Jr., Starfall, and Sesame Workshop. The big one, GeekBoy, is just now starting to venture out into Lego.com and a few other sites. But he still asks permission. And really, by the time they stop asking permission, Glubble won’t be any help.
This post just came through to me from Google alerts for “Glubble”, so thanks for the review.My names Ian Hayward, founder of Glubble.
I’m pleased to say that all the things you mention as cliches or improvements you’d like after testing the Beta version have indeed been fixed in our forthcoming final 1.0 version release.
Sounds to me like the main criteria your looking for is an empty system that you can add just a few sites to, that you choose rather than having to delete the ones we try to provide as suggestions first, well with the final 1.0 you can!
Im sure you can appreciate its a fine balance to try to please too groups of parents, one group like the suggested list as a starter point, another group know specifically what they do or don’t want their child to play with one line so they want to specify their own sites.
To address both of these requirements the new version has a “public library†that you can quickly select from at any time in addition to adding your own things.
You’ll be glad to know we’ve really simplified the log in thing too, although the beta is admittedly bit clumsy in this regard, I’m glad to say the concept has done it’s job .
What I’d suggest is you give the final 1.0 for a spin when it launches in December and add the bits of the web your children want to see and you’ll be all set.
For me as a parent who created this for our own children, it’s not so much what they do or don’t want to see during online elementary school age that’s the problem, its more about having the peace of mind they can’t wander of online to somewhere they don’t realize is not appropriate until too late.
– Ian
Hello,
I tried Glubble and I found it to be not very good. It required me and my children to learn all new habits when using the PC and it consumed more of my valuable free time.
I “don’t” recommend it to any family with children.