Netwseeper - Youtube, what do you do?

[TheRobins]

Hi all,

 

Wonder what is the best way to manage youtube in Netsweeper. I have moved from Securly to Netswepper and miss how Securly managed youtube, especially for our Students. Whilst we do not want free reign on youtube for our students, there are legitimate reasons for them accessing it especially in computing lessons.

 

I have been playing with enabling Restricted mode, just testing it and its about as useful as a chocolate teapot.

 

Wonder how you all handle Youtube and Netsweeper together?

[mavhc]

How did it work in Securely?

[TheRobins]

You could do it via, Catergory, Channel or an actual video itself, it worked really well and we even had a safeguarding audit and they couldnt break it, much to their annoyance.

 

 

One of the features I am missing.

[sigma]

We allow embedded YouTube or Vimeo on certain maths and IT sites via referrer header, and endeavour to allow whenever its asked for by staff for pupils. It’s otherwise blocked.

 

Why did you switch?

[mavhc]

Interesting, it's using https://mixedanalytics.com/blog/list-of-youtube-video-category-ids/ I assume

[TheRobins]

Ahhh ok, Interested to see how referrer header would work, It is actually embedded sites I am mainly interested in.

 

Switch was mainly due to reporting features and pricing at the time. I am missing it to be honest, but needs must.

 

- - - Updated - - -

 

Looks like they match in the console yes.

[sigma]

So, for Corbett Maths for example in a Local List for the Policy Group (pupils), so that it overrides Shared List and category entries:

 

Entry: corbettmaths.com

Entry Type: URL

Request Part: Referrer Header

Action: Allow.

 

Depending on how you have blocked YouTube, you may need to fiddle and diddle a bit with some of the "youtube framework" urls, but you should be fine.

This allows videos just from Corbett Maths to play, and pupils are blocked if they try to play anything else. Same for sites using Vimeo.

 

The Netsweeper online manual is pretty good with information, but sometimes takes a bit of getting used to to find what you are looking to do.

[PaddyNewman]

Referrer header if you want source sites to work without opening YouTube.

 

Header modification if you want strict mode for kids and higher for Staff.

[mavhc]

The strict mode for youtube still has millions of non educational videos for children to waste hours watching, I want them to make an allow-only mode, only approved videos work

[PaddyNewman]

Welcome to the internet! Indeed it's going to be full of non educational stuff, but can't be expected to let the filter do the heavy lifting, there's something to be said about classroom management which was how it was done when I was at school!

 

Referrer stuff to keep it working on the sites they need access to, blocked elsewhere if you don't want them accessing.

 

Depends how you want it done, but referrer header stuff will do the 'only on approved embedded sites' or specific YouTube URLs, or Google workspace controls.

[sigma]

Referrer header if you want source sites to work without opening YouTube.

 

Header modification if you want strict mode for kids and higher for Staff.

 

Header modification for forcing "Safe search" on duckduckgo search engine where there's no Group Policy support, and for redirecting search engines back to Google (or Bing), where's there's no Safe Search option to enforce, which is more useful than blocking.

 

/*enddigress

[PaddyNewman]

We enforce safe search via DNS for Google/Bing/DuckDuckGo/Ecosia and don't rely on the filtering to do that, as not everyone enables SSL inspection so hitting at the DNS level helps.

[mavhc]

Welcome to the internet! Indeed it's going to be full of non educational stuff, but can't be expected to let the filter do the heavy lifting, there's something to be said about classroom management which was how it was done when I was at school!

 

Referrer stuff to keep it working on the sites they need access to, blocked elsewhere if you don't want them accessing.

 

Depends how you want it done, but referrer header stuff will do the 'only on approved embedded sites' or specific YouTube URLs, or Google workspace controls.

 

But Google specifically has an allow-list system, the only problem is you can't set pre-allowed list to null

[PaddyNewman]

I don't know the Google intricate working, I tend to never touch that, I am more behind the scenes than front of house management of things.

 

Surely if must = 1, just bang a school video on there only? If its zero, why allow YouTube at all? Perhaps I am misunderstanding

[mavhc]

I want staff to be able to allowlist videos, which can be done in Youtube easily, there's an "allow this video button", but there's no way to have youtube restrict everything else, only Restricted mode, which lets millions of videos be played