New version release: xFanatical Safe Doc v1.61.0.

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William Zhou

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Apr 30, 2026, 1:42:47 PMApr 30
to xFanatical Safe Doc Community
Dear xFanatical Safe Doc Community,

We are pleased to announce the release of xFanatical Safe Doc v1.61.0.
In this release we added value to Safe Doc by two new policies BlockInstallPageAsApp and BlockGoogleSearchLens.

Please find the policy details below for your understanding. 
1. BlockInstallPageAsApp
 1.1 Description: This policy block students to install Progressive Web Apps (PWA) as apps. Chrome supports a feature to Use web apps - Computer - Google Chrome Help and allow to install it as app. These apps seem to be native as it opens its own window. So Students used this feature to bypass managed web filters to play games.

1.2 Other details: This policy is an Object, containing 2 child properties Blacklist and BlacklistExceptions. (Similar to BlockDriveSharedLinks policy, just for your reference).
1.3 Data type: Object
1.4 Default value:
{
"Blacklist": [],
  "BlacklistExceptions": [],
}
1.5 Example:
"BlockInstallPageAsApp": {
  "value": {
    "Blacklist": ["*"],
    "BlacklistExceptions": [
      "https://classroom.google.com/*",
      "https://chat.google.com/*",
    ]
  }
}
1.6 Sub Properties Explanation
1.6.1 Blacklist: Using this property admin can block all sites to install them as app according to set value. If admin set wildcard * as value then all sites can't be installed as app, If the value set to any specific url then only than site will be blocked. Data type is List of Strings and Default value [].
1.6.1 BlacklistExceptions: Using this property admin can allow some exact educational urls or sub pages which can be installed as app and student can open it e.g Google Slides, Google Docs, IXL Learning etc. Data type is List of Strings and Default value []. This property give more control to admin to block some sub pages but allow others.

2. BlockGoogleSearchLens
1.1 Description: This policy block students from using Google Lens Search aka search by image feature. Google Lens allows users to search using images instead of text, which makes it easy to find information just by scanning pictures. Default value is False and Data type is Boolean.

You can learn more about these updates and how to implement them here:

Lastly, if you plan to add the new policies to your existing Safe Doc configuration, please check: 

Best regards,

William Zhou
xFanatical Safe Doc Team

Mr S Elgar

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May 1, 2026, 4:37:38 AMMay 1
to xFanatical Safe Doc Community, William Zhou
I implemented this today which is great thank you. I immediately noticed that students who had created apps already for valid websites had issues. Also the files app was blocked. Maybe worth having a bigger deafult list in the exceptions?. Mine is below:

      "https://classroom.google.com/*",
      "https://outlook.com/*",
      "https://duolingo.com/*",
      "https://senecalearning.com/*",
      "https://docs.google.com/*",
      "https://drive.google.com/*",
      "chrome://file-manager/*"

Jason Huang

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May 1, 2026, 12:18:56 PMMay 1
to xFanatical Safe Doc Community
Hello admins, 

We noticed a minor JSON format issue in the last email and would like to share a correction. In the example of policy BlockInstallPageAsApp, the trailing comma needs to be removed. The correct example configuration is
"BlockInstallPageAsApp": {
  "value": {
    "Blacklist": ["*"],
    "BlacklistExceptions": [
      "https://classroom.google.com/*",
      "https://chat.google.com/*"
    ]
  }
}

Additionally, we received feedback that ChromeOS system apps (e.g. File Explorer, Camera, Calculator, Scanner) are blocked when the BlockInstallPageAsApp policy is a whitelist approach. We've updated our BlockInstallPageAsApp policy documentation to list many system apps' URLs in the BlacklistExceptions. Please see this example configuration. 
"BlockInstallPageAsApp": {
  "Value": {

    "Blacklist": ["*"],
    "BlacklistExceptions": [
      "https://classroom.google.com/*",
      "chrome://camera-app",
      "chrome://scanning",
      "chrome://os-settings",
      "https://canvas.apps.chrome",
      "chrome://shortcut-customization",
      "chrome://personalization",
      "chrome://help-app",
      "chrome://print-management",
      "chrome-untrusted://terminal",
      "chrome-untrusted://projector",
      "chrome://media-app",
      "chrome-untrusted://boca-app"
    ]
  }
}

Please feel free to ask us any questions. 
Thank you all for your feedback. 
--
Jason Huang
Product Manager, xFanatical Safe Doc
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