Homeschoolers can use Plucky to filter computers that children need for studying. The family page describes an example situation where Plucky can be configured in a way to support multiple people using the same computer. If the device is only being used by the student, setting up Plucky is a bit simpler and homeschoolers can simply follow the steps in this guide.

Install Plucky

Make sure you have a web browser that is compatible with Plucky and can take advantage of all features it offers. Here is a list of compatible browsers:

Click one of the following links for instructions on how to install the correct version of Plucky for the computer:

Note: Chromebooks only support the Plucky Lite version and won’t be able to do some things in this guide. Sorry.

Follow the video guide included on each platform page to install Plucky.

Make the device restricted

By default Plucky is set up for self-control mode, but for parents to get the most out of Plucky on children’s devices it needs to be set up for other-control mode. To do this we need to follow the steps on restricted devices.

  1. Install Plucky using the steps above
  2. Create an account on u.pluckeye.net and sign-in
  3. The device will be associated with that account
  4. Navigate to the device page by locating your name in the upper right corner of the page, clicking on it, and selecting device from the dropdown options
  5. Click the red restrict button

The computer is now configured for parental control and Plucky filtering settings can only be changed by logging into u.pluckeye.net. Therefore, it’s a good idea to not save the password if your browser asks, and to remember to log out whenever you finish making changes.

How to make changes to the filtering settings

In the previous steps you set up the device so that changes can only be configured from u.pluckeye.net while logged in. To actually make a configuration change, you can do the following:

  1. Visit this link: https://u.pluckeye.net/config
  2. Login if you are prompted to do so
  3. The page you are redirected to is called the configuration page and this is where you’ll control all Plucky settings. It might be a good idea to bookmark the page to open it quickly in the future.

Turn on the system feature

As practice for making configuration changes, you are going to make your first configuration change right now.

On the configuration page:

  1. Click on the Raw edit tab near the middle of the page
  2. Scroll to the bottom of the text-box and click on the empty space
  3. Type feature system on its own line so that there is nothing before or after it on the same line
  4. Click the save button

You will receive a prompt from Plucky letting you know the system feature was turned on and to restart the browser. Go ahead and restart the browser as instructed.

When you re-open the browser and visit the configuration page you’ll notice your change to add the system feature now appears on the main screen (the show tab) because you successfully changed the configuration.

Safe Browsing

Similar to how you turned on the system feature in the last section, you can enable a feature through Plucky that forces search engines and YouTube into safe mode.

feature safe
feature safer

For a breakdown of what each feature does, you can read more on safe. In short, safe filters search engines wherever possible as well as YouTube. safer does the same but filters YouTube more aggressively.

Most parents will probably want safer for younger kids, and safe for pre-teens and up.

Making configuration changes while following the guide

Now that know how to make changes to your configuration, whenever you see something like this…

allow example.com
block google.com image/
flee word pizza
allow program:teams

…you will know the documentation is telling you to copy the contents of the box and paste it into the text-box on the Raw edit tab of your configuration page. Don’t forget to save changes by clicking the save button!

YouTube

YouTube is a powerful teaching resource for homeschoolers but at the same time double-edged. The goal is to use Plucky to transform YouTube by stripping away all the distracting parts including the related videos section, the comments section, etc.

A screenshot of a YouTube video page without Plucky filters applied.  ⇒  A screenshot of a YouTube video page with Plucky filters applied.

To clean up the YouTube video page as seen in the second image, you can copy and paste the following rules into your configuration. Please be aware these rules are only tested working on the compatible browsers listed earlier in this guide.

If you want to make sure ads are also filtered out, please make sure to use Brave browser. Otherwise you will need to install a separate adblocking tool for Chrome or Edge.

Rules to make the watch page distraction-free

block youtube.com selector:ytd-masthead
block youtube.com selector:segmented-like-dislike-button-view-model
block youtube.com selector:#secondary-inner
block youtube.com selector:#related
block youtube.com selector:.html5-endscreen
block youtube.com selector:ytd-comments

Blocking non-approved videos

If you apply the block rules above, you will notice the search bar is removed from the page. However, clever kids might realize they can still find YouTube videos with Google search or other methods.

To block the YouTube website except for pre-approved videos, you can do the following:

block youtube.com text/html
allow https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N2PpRnFqnqY

The first rule blocks the YouTube website; the second rule allows the link to the educational video in the example images above. With this configuration, kids can watch the educational video but the rest of YouTube is blocked.

Also, YouTube is blocked in a particular way where you can’t visit the site itself, but you can still watch embedded YouTube videos on https://www.khanacademy.org/ or similar sites.

Allowing playlists for different subjects

If you like to organize your educational videos by subject by creating playlists, you will want to make sure those links are also explicitly allowed; otherwise Plucky will filter them along with the rest of YouTube.

You can add your playlists to the configuration by visiting each playlist page and copying the link. Remember to put allow before the link when adding it to your configuration.

For example:

allow https://www.youtube.com/feed/playlists
allow https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLSQl0a2vh4HAVatEXAN_W1Lrcuu7yy7_6
allow https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLSQl0a2vh4HAtw9UfXpWWFRfheZYwHptr
allow https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLSQl0a2vh4HA528Zyvlu2giom7XkHj_OM

The first link to the playlists feed is included so you have access to all of your playlists in one page.

Kids can request video approval

If your child can’t access a video that Plucky has blocked, they can request you to approve it in the following way.

  1. The child visits https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GNelfJ6IAJw and receives the blocked page message from Plucky
  2. He/she clicks the + add new rule button and makes sure the request is for the specific YouTube video link (if it isn’t, they can click on the dropdown menu and select the correct link)
  3. He/she clicks on the button at the top that displays the request: allow https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GNelfJ6IAJw
  4. The child will receive the OK message and be sent back to the block page until mom or dad approves the request
  5. Mom/Dad opens configuration page on their smartphone or personal device (not the child’s computer)
  6. They click on the Suggestions tab where they can see the request
  7. They can either click the blue accept or red reject buttons
  8. If the request is accepted, the block page on the child’s screen will reload and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GNelfJ6IAJw will play
Last updated: 2024-10-31