This article is written for Google Workspace for Education administrators.
Google gives you ability to search images and the web with the Explore feature in Docs and Slides. It's a convenient feature overall, but it's not 100% safe. Students can easily find contents unintended and harmful. Though SafeSearch is enforced, inappropriate images or age-restricted websites still pop up in front of students' eyes. For example, search girls in bikini in Explore's search bar will display tons of skins.
The article shows you how Safe Doc can disable this feature. If you have yet to install Safe Doc, please get a 30 days trial.
How Safe Doc blocks the Explore feature?
Safe Doc removes many places that can trigger the Explore sidebar.
First of all, Safe Doc removes the Explore side bar in the bikini screenshot above. Then Safe Doc blocks the Explore widget and the Explore menu items. The Explore feature in Docs and Slides are almost the same.
When you add a link to any words, Google Docs (also in Slides, Drawings) will prompt you relevant search results and links as you type the keywords. Some links are not kids-appropriate, e.g. the keywords how to kill suggest links like I want to kill my myself or 'If You Want to Kill Someone, We are the Right Guys' in the follow screenshot. Safe Doc removes these links.
Students can trigger Exploring any keywords by selecting the keywords and click the Explore 'xxxxx' option in the context menu. That opens the side Explore panel and shows all search results related to the keywords. Safe Doc removes this Explore 'xxxxx' menu item. These menu items also exist in Google Sheets or Drawing.
Why not disable the Explore feature in Sheets?
Sheets has an Explore widget too. However, unlike the one in docs or slides, the Explore feature in sheets does not expose the internet to students. It's all about the insights for data within the sheet. From Google's support page, it shows you can ask questions about the sheet data, add alternating color backgrounds automatically, get charts or analysis etc. None of these will cross the fence. Therefore, Safe Doc leaves it out.
How to configure in Safe Doc?
First of all, make sure you have deployed Safe Doc and read Safe Doc Configuration.
This blocking Explore feature is managed by the policy EnableExplore. To enforce the blocking, please either remove the policy from the policy for extensions or explicitly set its value to false.
"EnableExplore": {
"Value": false
}
Final Words
Explore is a double-edged sword, which is fun to play but may hurt yourself.
Google Apps not only include the Explore feature that's potentially risky, but many other features that can be exploited by students, like image searching or video searching. Check out my other articles, how to Block Image Search in Google Apps?, disable Dictionary in Docs, or block video searching in Slides.
Safe Doc