Safe YouTube on a Family or School Chromebook — Without Family Link

Chromebooks are everywhere kids are: on the kitchen table, in school backpacks, shared between siblings. They are also, for most families, the device where YouTube gets watched without anyone looking over a shoulder. Google's answer is Family Link, which means creating a supervised Google account for your child and managing it from your phone. That works for some families. For many others — a shared family Chromebook, a laptop the school hands out, a parent who simply does not want another account tied to their child — it is more setup than they want.

This guide shows a different route: filtering YouTube in the browser itself, on the Chromebook, in about ten minutes.

Why the browser is the right place to filter on a Chromebook

A Chromebook is, at its core, the Chrome browser. That is good news for parents, because Chrome extensions from the Chrome Web Store install and run on ChromeOS the same way they do on Windows or Mac. A filter that lives in the browser sees every YouTube page your child opens on youtube.com — the home feed, search results, recommendations and the sidebar next to a video.

Blokari is one such extension. It hides YouTube channels by category using curated lists, and it includes parental controls that are free on every plan. Filtering happens on the device: the lists are stored in the browser, and each channel on the page is checked against them locally.

Two honest limits before you start:

• It filters YouTube in Chrome, not the YouTube Android app. Many Chromebooks can install Android apps from the Play Store. A browser extension cannot reach inside those apps, so for a child's profile, plan on YouTube at youtube.com in Chrome.
• It is a filter, not a lock on the whole computer. The steps below close the most common ways around it, but a determined teenager with admin rights will always have options. That is true of every browser-based control.

Step 1: Use the right Chromebook profile

Install the extension in the profile your child actually uses. On a family Chromebook that is usually one of two setups:

• Your child has their own profile on the Chromebook (any regular Google account). Sign in as that profile and install the extension there.
• Everyone shares one profile. Install it there. Your own YouTube in that profile will be filtered too, which most parents find acceptable on a shared machine.

You do not need to sign in to Blokari to use the parental controls. Signing in with Google is optional and mainly backs up your lists so you can restore them elsewhere.

Step 2: Install Blokari and pick "For Kids"

Open the Chrome Web Store page on the Chromebook and click Add to Chrome. The setup wizard opens on first install. Choose the For Kids profile.

Then open the extension's Options and go to the Parental control tab. Set the mode to Kids profile (preset categories). This turns on child-safety categories in one go, including:

• Addictive kids content — low-effort videos built to keep small children watching
• AI-generated content — channels mass-producing synthetic videos
• Unboxing and ads — toy unboxings and thinly disguised advertising
• Info scams — fake gurus and "easy money" schemes aimed at teens
• Teen safety: 18+ content, harmful body ideals, dangerous challenges, gambling and betting

Each category is a curated list of channels, not a keyword filter, so a science channel is not hidden because a video title mentions a virus. You can switch any category off if it does not fit your family.

A note on block levels. Blokari has three: Green blurs matching videos and lets you click to reveal them, Yellow hides them and also applies each subscription's curator-defined rules, and Red adds automatic heuristics on top. For children, a level that hides content is a better fit than a blur a child can click through.

Step 3: Lock the settings with a PIN

Still in the Parental control tab, set a PIN of 4 to 6 digits and tick Lock settings changes (PIN required). From now on, changing modes, categories or lists asks for the PIN.

You can also save a recovery email for a forgotten PIN. Use an address your child cannot open — it does not have to be the one on your Google account.

Step 4 (younger children): allowed channels only

For a young child, a blocklist is the wrong tool: there will always be a new channel nobody has listed yet. The better approach is the reverse.

Switch the mode to Allowed channels only. In this mode Blokari hides every YouTube channel that is not on your personal whitelist. Then add the channels you are happy with — a favourite science show, a drawing tutorial, a nature channel — in the Lists tab of the extension's Options (paste the channel link or @handle). Everything else simply does not appear in the feed, search or recommendations.

Start small. Five or six channels your child already loves are enough. You can add more as they ask, and it becomes a conversation rather than a fight.

Step 5: Close the ChromeOS gaps

These are Chrome and ChromeOS settings, not Blokari settings, and they make the filter much harder to sidestep:

• Turn off Guest browsing. Extensions do not run in Guest mode. On the Chromebook owner's account, look in ChromeOS settings under the option for managing other people and switch off Guest browsing.
• Decide about Incognito. Chrome extensions do not run in Incognito windows by default. Either allow Blokari in Incognito (chrome://extensions → Blokari → Details → Allow in Incognito) or talk to your child about why Incognito is off-limits.
• Keep the parent account separate. If your own profile is on the same Chromebook, lock the screen when you step away so it does not become the unfiltered back door.
• Check chrome://extensions now and then. If Blokari has been switched off, you will see it there.

On a school Chromebook

School Chromebooks are usually managed through the Google Admin console, and the IT administrator decides which extensions can be installed. Parents generally cannot add extensions to a managed device, so the conversation belongs with the school.

The administrator can force-install an extension by its ID, which puts it on every managed Chromebook and stops students from removing it. Our page for schools and organisations explains how that deployment works, and you are welcome to forward it to your school's IT team.

What it costs

Nothing, for parental controls. The Kids profile, PIN lock, allowed-channels-only mode and every curated category are free on every plan. The free plan syncs the lists monthly and is tied to one browser. Pro (€3/month) adds daily sync and use in all your browsers; Business (€8/month) adds real-time sync. None of that is required to keep YouTube safe on one family Chromebook.

Quick checklist

1. Install Blokari from the Chrome Web Store in your child's Chrome profile.
2. Pick For Kids, then Kids profile in the Parental control tab.
3. Set a PIN and lock settings changes.
4. For younger children, switch to Allowed channels only and add a few trusted channels.
5. Turn off Guest browsing and decide about Incognito.

For the full overview of what the parental controls do, see the parental controls page and our guide to free YouTube parental controls. If you want to avoid accounts altogether, read YouTube parental controls without an account.

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