Safari 4.2 for Tiger: parental controls problem

[nhcowboy1]

Just got my son's iBook back from the shop where it underwent a major overhaul. In the process, Safari 3.2.1 was replaced with Safari 4.2.

Got the iBook home, my son went online and - surprise, surprise! - the parental controls are essentially gone! Oh yes, it says they're there . . . but as soon as my son wants to do something that requires admin authorization, all he has to do is click on "Cancel" when the admin window opens up, and it takes him wherever he wants to go. Delete history? Sure, no problem! Private browsing? Be my guest! 😱

Meanwhile, if I want to turn off the parental controls briefly - say, to change his home page or customize the toolbar - sorry, no way! Ordinarily, what I'd do is click on the little box for "parental controls" in the preferences security menu, it would ask for my password, and then I could adjust whatever I want before turning the controls back on again. Now? Forget about it, can't be done. 😡

So, what do I do? Now that everything on the computer has been updated, can I go back and reload his original operating system? Can I just go back and reload the older version of Safari, without having to replace the operating system? I need to fix this, and I know it can be done . . . I'd just like it to be as painless as possible. Obviously, doing a clean install would not be my solution of choice! 😀

Help . . please!

Judith

 

[PurrBall]

Go to apple.com/safari and download Safari for Tiger. When the download completes, you will have a .dmg file which may automatically mount (and maybe even launch an installer; close it if an installer opens) which contains two files. One is an uninstaller which should bring you back to Safari 3.

 

[nhcowboy1]

Go to apple.com/safari and download Safari for Tiger.

So, I need to download Safari 4.2? Really? Okay . . .

When the download completes, you will have a .dmg file which may automatically mount (and maybe even launch an installer; close it if an installer opens) which contains two files. One is an uninstaller which should bring you back to Safari 3.

So you're saying that Safari 3 is still there somewhere. . . . hiding?

What I should do then, before I start, is check to see if I already have the uninstaller on my hard drive. It should be there if Safari 4.2 was just installed, right?

By the way, thanks for replying, PurrBall! I know that Tiger just isn't nearly as sexy as Snow Leopard . . . 😱

 

[nhcowboy1]

I am not finding an uninstaller for Safari 4 . . . .

C'mon, I realize this isn't as exciting as Leopard & Snow Leopard, but could someone please tell me how to get Safari 4 off my kid's computer???

 

[JediMeister]

Only the beta of Safari 4 had an uninstaller in the .dmg. The only way to downgrade Safari from 4 to 3 is to archive and install the system with the gray OS discs. Rather than going that route and having to pick and choose what to update, have you considered contacting AppleCare so that they can take a look at why parental controls isn't interacting with Safari 4 the way it did with Safari 3? I'm sure the engineers might take a gander at that as well if you don't mind the trouble of waiting for a fix.

 

[nhcowboy1]

Only the beta of Safari 4 had an uninstaller in the .dmg. The only way to downgrade Safari from 4 to 3 is to archive and install the system with the gray OS discs.

JediMeister - THANK YOU for your response! Since posting my question, I've done quite a bit of research and discovered that I am, indeed, totally screwed. I appreciate your suggestion to contact Apple regarding the problem, and I have already sent a bug report to them. But, as for waiting for them to fix it . . . thanks, but no thanks. I don't need Safari 4 on this computer and would just as soon not have it there. No reason to make life (or the iBook) more complicated than it needs to be. 🙂

 

[nhcowboy1]

Using the suggestions posted here, I have succeeded in removing Safari 4 and reinstalling Safari 3.23. And, although it took me hours to find this solution, it took less than 15 minutes to implement it!

And the parental controls are now working again!!!