In the past few weeks, I’ve spent a vast number of hours in the car as a passenger - mostly on the M25, completely stationary, desperately looking for a source of entertainment. You can only spend so long counting red cars, changing CDs and playing “I spy…” before getting a bad case of cabin fever.

So I thought I’d browse a few of my favourite blogs on a borrowed Orange mobile, instead of my usual T-Mobile web’n'walk, but came to the realisation that my usual reads were blocked. No bloglines, Seth Godin or access to my own blog either. I appealed with Orange that the sites should be reviewed as, surely, I wasn’t posting lewd “adult content” by Orange’s definition. All requests were turned down!

While on the road, without an account number at hand, Orange customer service could not make the change for me and I was unable to turn off Safeguard and resume regular surfing. I was destined to be limited to a few websites until I returned home. It was a looong journey…

Now, I’m not picking on Orange - It just happens to be the only one I’ve had problems with. I’m clearly not the only one getting annoyed with networks defaulting users to being mobile-nanny’ed.

While it’s fair enough that users known to be underage are limited to a range of websites - since parents aren’t able to view browsing history or set parental control as one would on a desktop computer - it’s impractical and annoying for the rest of us mobile surfers.

Once I returned to a desktop computer, it was a doddle to turn off Safeguard. If you’re with Orange, you can follow the steps below to do the same.

Turning off Safeguard on Orange

• Log in to your Orange account
• Either sign-in using your mobile number and password, or
• Register to access your account details online
• Enter your mobile number and click the radio button saying “I don’t have a password and would like to register”
• If you have your mobile with you, Orange will send you a text message containing a short code which will confirm the mobile is in your possession
• Once you’ve logged in to your account, you’ll find the adult content settings under Your Details
• Select “Change” at the bottom of the page to change your settings.

Congratulations, you’ve turned off Orange Safeguard and can now browse freely!

If you’re with a different operator, why not contribute by telling us how you’ve done it or what limitations you face by default? Do they bother you or are the websites you need already whitelisted?

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 8th, 2007 at 3:30 pm and is filed under Network Operators, Tips and tutorials. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.