Home Edition

Connect Wireless

If you are not on a wired connection, you will need wireless for web-browsing, Skype and Dropbox functionality. If you just need to work on a document or spreadsheet, you dont need the Internet.

It's important to remember that part of the security of these images is that nothing is saved, not even the wireless network information. To use the Internet, click the menu in the top right of the screen, click "Wi-Fi Not Connected" and then Select Network.

Pick your wireless network and then enter the password and click Connect.

Web Protection

Like all of our live images, OpenDNS Family Shield DNS filtering is active out-of-the-box. This filters our many adult, risky and malicious sites, but leaves a few categories of site available and doesn't block access to malicious IP addresses (because it's DNS based).

The Home Edition includes an extra layer of filtering that is applied on the image. When the Home Edition starts, internet access it blocked completely until it can download and import the latest filter from our servers. The Home Edition filter is not as restrictive as the filter for the Kids Edition, reducing the filter load time by more than half.

Filter updated 2021-04-27:      1,185,126 domain names and IP addresses.

Downloading

Once you connect to a network, you will see a notification that Web Protection is Downloading the latest files. This is the beginning of an update process that will take about  3 minutes. Actual downloading of the files should take less than a minute.

Web-browsing will not be available until the entire process is complete.

Importing

Once the files are downloaded, you will see a notification that Web Protection has started the Import process. This will load the filter and update Firefox (if needed). This will take about 2 minutes on a typical machine.

Ready

Once the import has completed, you will see a notification from Web Protection that it is ready and you can get on the Internet.

Missed Notifications

Often you may step away from the computer while it does all of this. When you come back, the notifications may be gone. To see if everything is ready, click the clock at the top of the screen. If you see the three notifications like in the video below, you are good!

Skype

To open Skype, click the Skype favorite icon in th dock and then login. Remember this login will not be saved the next time you turn on the Home Edition.

Dropbox

Dropbox installs the latest version everytime you open it. Click the Dropbox icon in the dock and then click OK to install the latest version.

Dropbox will install and then open a sign-in page in Firefox

Documents

LibreOffice Writer is what you will use to create documents from scratch, edit Word documents or make your own PDFs. Those who have used G-Suite Docs to create documents, will find this interface familiar.

Spreadsheets

LibreOffice Calc is what you will use to create spreadsheets from scratch and edit Excel workbooks. Those who have used G-Suite Sheets for spreadsheets, will find this interface familiar. Formulas in Excel and Sheets documents will work just fine, macros from Excel documents are proprietary and only work in Microsoft Office. Boooo.

Credits and Help

To access this page and find more info about who contributed to this image, click Credits in the dock.

Other Apps

You can find other apps by clicking Show Applications in the dock. There are presentation, multimedia, music player, games, scanner, screeshot, web cam apps and more. You can scroll through the different pages of apps or click the page circles on the right of the screen.