Limiting access to e-mail &/or options on Netscape (Windows95)

[Alejandro Garza Gonzalez]

On Tue, 30 Jan 1996, Krista Goguen wrote:

> Pasadena Public Library provides WWW access to the public at 4 
> workstations.  We use Netscape.  Does anyone on the list know how to 
> prevent users from using the e-mail or news functions of Netscape or how 
> to prevent users from accessing the "options" feature in Netscape.  We 
> use Windows 95 and the Windows 95 registry.  Windows 95 support did not 
> have any solutions.  Please respond to me (kgoguen at ci.pasadena.ca.us) or to 
> Dave at ci.pasadena.ca.us (who will be joining the list soon).  Thanks in 
> advance for your time and assistance.

Netscape 1.12 for Windows 3.1 can be started up in Kosk mode issuing it a 
command line argument of "-k" (For example: c:\nscape\netscape.exe -k"). 
Not sure if this'll work with win95, though.

And, while you could disable the "Mail document" menu option, do you 
need or want the browser not be able to send any form of mail message 
at all? (Via "mailto:" anchors...) This is a bit more difficult, but you 
could at least prevent the user from doing it if you don't configure the 
mailing address portion of Netscape, and either write-protect the 
netscape preferences file, or go Kiosk mode and eliminate the menus 
altogether (I'm not sure if the latter prevents netscape from trying to 
pop-up its mail configuration window on its own).

In our case, we just write-protect the Netscape settings files; I'm sure 
this would work in Win95.

While some say that the Kiosk mode in Netscape is a bit too "kiosk" for 
their uses (no menus whatsoever), it does provide an alternative to 
having patrons changing settings (either intentionally or accidentally).

+-------------------------------------+------------------------------------+
| Ing. Alejandro Garza Gonzalez       | E-MAIL: agarza at campus.mty.itesm.mx |
| ITESM University, Monterrey, Mexico | "Ok bye!"                 // Solo  |
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