Public Web Browsers

[Christopher Hirt]

Hi all,

I've noticed a fair amount of discussion about public web browsers on this
list and thought I would share a link that has helped out Calvin College create
web kiosks for email, etc. around campus.  I'm pretty new to this list so
perhaps many already know about this.  I plan to use this customization of
Firefox as a web kiosk for our OPAC-dedicated machines.

What I'm talking about here is a free public web browser/kiosk solution using
Mozilla Firefox.  The link provided is a tutorial on locking down Firefox as a
web kiosk.  Note: aparently the customization files made available for download
don't work for recent versionsof Firefox.

Check it out for yourselves!
http://tln.lib.mi.us/~amutch/pro/phoenix/kiosk.htm

Also on this same web-site is simple solution for limiting web access to a
particular group of sites using the browser's proxy configuration.  For
example, you could limit people's access using the web browser to only the OPAC
and library homepage.  Could be useful in some situations.  Link is below.
http://tln.lib.mi.us/~amutch/pro/phoenix/proxies.htm

Hope this helps some people!

Chris Hirt
chirt at calvin.edu
Library Systems Programmer
Hekman Library - Calvin College
www.calvin.edu/library