SafeSearch YouTube Restricted Mode

In v16 SFOS supported something called Youtube Safety Mode, which is what they had back then.  Turning on SafeSearch enforcement turned on Safety Mode.

Youtube replaced Safety Mode with Restricted Mode.  At that point our enforcement was weakened.

In v17 SFOS now supports Restricted Mode.  Like the previous Safety, it is turned on with the SafeSearch enforcement feature.

Separating the two is possible, however the current decision is to combine them as we did in the past.

More feedback on this would be good.

Thanks for the feedback, I personally would love to have options in the SafeSearch section, maybe a tickbox for each option, I know Google, Bing and YouTube are supported so far.

Separating YouTube "Restricted Mode" from "Enforce Safe Search" option in XG Firewall would allow much more flexibility. YouTube "Restricted Mode" is currently just too restricted (not usable)...

To add my tuppence to this - coming from a UTM SG background having the two functions under one tick box is very restrictive. In about every UTM 9 I've rolled out I would absolutely want SafeSearch on for all and absolutely not want to force Youtube into restricted mode for those users that are allowed to use it (it cripples the content too much). It would be very beneficial to be able to apply restricted mode for groups of users, but having it as an all or nothing option isn't going to win over many.

I have to agree with everyone else. One checkbox isn't acceptable. After upgrading to XG 17 and seeing how restrictive youtube restricted is, I went and disabled safesearch. This is not ideal, because, as others mentioned, I want SafeSearch turned on, but I want youtube restricted mode off.

Yeah I have to agree with everyone else. Not having the option to turn off Restricted mode at will is far too restrictive. I understand the intent behind the merge but that control should be left with the end user not the developer. Needs fixed ASAP!!

Fully agree. Would LOVE to be able to separate the enforcement of SafeSearch and Restricted Mode. What would be even better would be if these enforcements could be applied per firewall rule or web policy. That... would be amazing.

We're currently experiencing a significant issue with our Sophos XG450 and its enforcement of YouTube Restricted Mode. When a user (teacher or student) is in Google and searches for anything + youtube (e.g. search string = "roger federer youtube" Google returns a list of YouTube videos. When the teacher or student clicks on ANY of these links, they all return as being "This video is restricted. Try signing in with a Google Apps account." Needless to say, signing in to Google makes no difference.

It would seem that XG, by enforcing YouTube Restricted Mode, is somehow breaking the web requests, leading to every YouTube video search being blocked with the restricted message.

PLEASE NOTE: This occurs when the user is searching at https://www.google.com.au. When they search within YouTube (https://www,youtube.com), they get a list of videos that are not restricted.

I spent 2 hours in a logmein sessions with Sophos Support yesterday. They've escalated our case.

If anyone has found a solution to this problem please let me know.

Thanks, Mark.

We are in the same boat. Youtube is restricted and my users aren't happy. Having more granular control would be great. I hope there is a fix coming soon!

Our problem has only started occurring since upgrading to 17 and then 17.01. The severity of Restricted mode forced by Sophos XG is far worse than Restricted mode manually configured on a device not going through our Sophos XG.

i.e. Enforce YouTube Restricted Mode on my iPhone (not going through XG) allows still a good YouTube experience. For example, if I search on Google for "roger federer youtube" I get a long list of links to YouTube, all of which work fine in Restricted Mode. BUT... perform the same search with Enforce SafeSearch set by XG and the entire list of YouTube Roger Federer links are classified as Restricted and not viewable.

In summary... this is not a YouTube problem. It is a Sophos XG problem. Sophos XG must be mangling the web requests somehow causing YouTube to respond with the Restricted mode error.

It's laughable that any YouTube content searched for in this way, via Sophos XG, returns as being Restricted.