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Guest Mode on Androids

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Be aware that I just bought my daughter a new Android.  It has "guest mode" as part of its settings.  She set up a guest mode and didn't select Mobicip as one of the apps that would display.  This resulted in completely zero protection.  I checked, and I could do a chrome word search with words and sites I had specifically blocked.  As it was a setting always on the phone, the only thing I could come up with was to actually leave it activated but set the password to be one that she doesn't know so that she can't get rid of Mobicip on it. By the way, trying to keep kids safe is exhausting.  I wish we never would have bought them phones. :(

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Mobicip Support's picture

Mobicip Support Sep 18, 2014

Re: Guest Mode on Androids

We are sorry for the trouble you are having. We have requested our dev team to look into this issue and will get back to you with an update as soon as we hear from them. We really appreciate your help and patience as we work towards your satisfaction.

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Alen Oct 14, 2015

Guest Mode on Androids

Any new updates on this feature? Without it Mobicip is pretty much unusable on Android.
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Mobicip Support's picture

Mobicip Support Oct 15, 2015

Re: Guest Mode on Androids

As far as we know, the guest mode is just another account on the device. The Mobicip service should still be enabled regardless of the account you are using. Any other browser or apps should bring up the Mobicip lock screen. 
 
If you are not seeing this, could you please confirm that Mobicip is still installed in the Guest account? If yes, please select the menu - Settings - Mobicip - App Restrictions and see if there is a list of apps that are blocked.
 
Please let us know and we will have our engineers investigate the problem. Also notify the device make, model and Android version running on the device. We appreciate your help and patience as we work towards your satisfaction.
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Chris Lovie-Tyler Dec 14, 2015

Guest mode on Androids

From Android 4.2 onwards (for tablets, at least), you can have multiple User accounts (these came into effect for smartphones in 5.0). A Guest account is one kind of account. With any of these parental control apps, you should not install them on the primary Owner account (which gives the ability to create other accounts), or your kids will be able to do what your daughter did and create a separate account and avoid the restrictions. You should put a password on the Owner account, set up a separate standard account for your child, and install Mobicep on *that* account. I learnt this from the Norton Family website (whose Android app I'm not overly happy with, so I'm considering trying Mobicep).

Mobicep:You shoul probably include insructions in setup material (if you haven't already).

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Avremy Cohen Dec 15, 2015

As someone who is having the

As someone who is having the same issue I would like to point out that with the newer phones on android 5.1it gives you the option to add a new "user" to the phone which in essence sets up a completely new android instance on the phone with none of the original settings/apps on it. This poses a big filtering concern. My specific phone is the lg g4 android 5.1 Tia Avremy Cohen
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Steven Harrison Mar 6, 2016

They're right - multi-user is a real gap in Mobicip!

Hi Mobicip, this previous user is onto a really serious flaw in the parental control of the newer Android versions. They don't seem to have continued the thread, however I'm happy to work with your engineers to sort out the problem. When you give the device over to the child, they are in effect a "device administrator".  What this means is that, even if you've installed Mobicip onto the "guest" account (because the installation is most definitely "per user", they can simply drag down from the top bar, touch the "users" control in the upper right, then create a new user on the device free of all restrictions. The design in Lolipop and newer markets this total separation of users as a good thing, as it means that new users cannot see your data however it also means that any settings, restrictions or app-blocking do not transfer to new users! As there is no concept of a restricted user account, anyone who can unlock can also create users. 

Both parents struggling with access control, and resorting to rooting the device in order to back-door disable the ability to switch / add users to the device. 

Because of how Android 5.x and it's multi-user mode is designed, there's simply no way to pass restrictions from one user to another, thus totally circumventing Mobicip and it's kin. 

One suggestion would be to see if there's a way to disable or block access to the user management bit on the top bar, as the settings block would manage the only other possible way for them to create a user... this would also mean however installing Mobicip into the "guest" account to restrict it similarly to the main phone account, and then prevent them from creating new users by preventing them from accessing the screens on which they would create new users... 

I'd love to say that I've got another easy solution that doesn't involve the root-modifications suggested in the above links. 

Again, happy to be the test-case to sort this challenge out - but it's absolutely VERY serious, especially as more devices move up to Lolipop and enable this feature - the older kids will figure it out pretty quick that this is the way to get around the blocks. 

FYI for testing sake - my son's phone is: 

Xperia M4 Aqua (E2303) running Android 5.0 (Kernel 3.10.49 - Build 26.1.A.2.167


Cheers,

Steven

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Mobicip Support's picture

Mobicip Support Sep 19, 2016

Re: They're right - multi-user is a real gap in Mobicip!

Please try to block the Settings app through Mobicip restrictions and check if it helps. Launch Mobicip app > Menu > Settings > Mobicip > App restrictions > find 'Settings' and block it. This should prevent the user from creating a new user account.

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Wyndi Guerrero May 29, 2017

Blocking settings on main

Blocking settings on main acct does NOT keep anyone from using guest acct and accessing anything they want. Makes mobicip useless 

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Mobicip Support's picture

Mobicip Support Jun 6, 2017

Re: Blocking settings on main

Hello Wyndi
You will have to delete the existing guest accounts in the device and then block the Settings app. This will make sure that there is only one account (with Mobicip app enabled) and no other way to create guest accounts anymore.
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