As far as kiosks go, I've been using Porteus Kiosk (http://porteus-kiosk.org/) for a few catalogue lookup stations in our library. It's an extremely minimalist Linux distro that boots directly into Chrome or Firefox (your choice) and you can choose how restrictive you want to be (whitelist certain websites or allow all sites, hide or show the address bar, etc). If you close the browser, it automatically wipes the history and launches a new browser. You can also set it to automatically refresh after x minutes of activity, for those patrons who like to do a search and then wander away without closing anything.
David Pettitt Systems Administrator I (Geoffrey R. Weller Library) University of Northern British Columbia Phone: 250.960.6605 | [email protected] -----Original Message----- From: Code for Libraries <[email protected]> On Behalf Of Andreas Orphanides Sent: September 25, 2018 3:01 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [CODE4LIB] Google Chrome privacy changes untenable I'm with you on the old kiosk-friendly Opera. Time was that we had an Opera-based kiosk that just worked. It needed to be restarted twice a year, when the time changed, because Opera's javascript clock had a weird bug where it didn't adjust for DST. Other than that it took basically zero maintenance. We still haven't found a completely stable kiosk-friendly replacement. On Tue, Sep 25, 2018 at 4:16 PM, Lolis, John <[email protected]> wrote: > It's been about a year and a half since I decided to get rid of Chrome > from both staff and public computers here. I reached that point after > seeing just how much network traffic was generated due to updates and > who knows what, and also finding out that Chrome was saving every > single installation update file on my work computer until those files > took up 30GB (I haven't seen that anywhere else, but then again, I > never looked). It also doesn't like it when you disable or delete > Chrome's scheduled tasks, as it re-creates them at will. > > My go to browser now is Vivaldi. It supports Chrome extensions, so I > don't miss my browser dev tools. > > I also use Firefox quite a bit, depending on the site I'm visiting. > > But how I miss the Opera of yore, especially the version with the > absolutely fantastic kiosk capabilities. > > John Lolis > Coordinator of Computer Systems > > <https://whiteplainslibrary.org/> > 100 Martine Avenue > White Plains, NY 10601 > > tel: 1.914.422.1497 > fax: 1.914.422.1452 > > https://whiteplainslibrary.org/ > > *When you think about it, *all* security is ultimately security by > ignorance.* > > > > On Mon, Sep 24, 2018 at 7:48 PM Sam Manderson > <[email protected]> > wrote: > > > Greetings library colleagues, > > > > I would like to propose the changes to Google Chrome make the use of > > the application in a Public PC environment unconscionable from a > > user privacy standpoint. > > https://www.wired.com/story/google-chrome-login-privacy/ > > https://blog.cryptographyengineering.com/2018/09/23/why-im-leaving- > chrome/ > > > > Mozilla's 'Firefox' is a comparable web-browser which is in my view > > a > good > > replacement, and the values of Mozilla more closely align with > > broader library values. > > https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/about/manifesto/ > > https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/ > > > > Best, > > > > Sam Manderson > > Librarian - Mobile & Outreach Services | Whangarei Libraries > > Whangarei District Council | Private Bag 9006, Whangarei 0148 | > > www.whangarei-libraries.com P 09 430 4206 | DDI 09 470 3002 | E > > [email protected] > > >
