"Secret" Games on Google Search Page

[marcusdstein]

We use a whitelisting only method for student web browsing at my campus. And this has been great to truly restrict some student OUs.

HOWEVER, the students have figured out if they Google Search "minecraft" or "pacman," these games will play atop the Google Search page without them having to go to a separate URL. 

Does anyone know how to block these "secret" games within Google Search?

[Olger]

Those 'secret' games are google search games, not so secret at all. Talk to chatgpt and ask it to explain it. They're pretty much impossible to block. They're sourced from common google sources so blocking those sources would break lots of normal google stuff like search itself and probably docs, sheets, etc. 

The games are html games, and use common html blocks like <div> which can't be blocked cause the names (can) change with new deployments. They run completely in the browser, there's no server involved at all aside from loading the search page.

Those games are often derived from Google Doodles, which use the same tech. Essentially, you can't block them. There used to be a Workspace setting to block Google Doodles but thats been removed a while ago.

The only way to block the games is to block searching for it. But if you blocked 'snake', you'd block a whole lot more than just the Google game 'snake'.

PITB. Shrug.

[tneuser]

We use XFanatical's Safe Doc to turn off the ability to play these games. It allows for a ton of other features as well. You may want to check it out. Plus, I feel the price is reasonable for what it can do.

https://xfanatical.com/product/safe-doc/ 

[ddunlap]

The typical CIPA filter for NC schools is Zscaler - we were able to block with SSL inspection on > Cloud App Control > Consumer > Google Doodle.

[Jocke]

There's a couple of extensions you could try. Here's an example that seems to work pretty well in my testing; https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/games-blocker/dcaikidbolchfhcieemjijhdefmomnnh

[ddunlap]

I looked at that extension just now - its rules.json file enumerates 39 offensive sites such as:

*://*.google.*/fbx?fbx=snake_arcade*

*://*.google.*/logos/2010/pacman10*

*://*.google.*/logos/2017/oskar_fischinger/*

*://doodles.google/*/30th-anniversary-of-pac-man*

*://googlefeud.com/*

This looks like very dated whack-a-mole via extension...

It would be nice if Google allowed K12 sites to turn off some of the intelligence in the search function because of the audience....