Students make anti-porn software

TECHNOLOGY | APP

Students of Kiira College Butiki in Jinja district have developed a web browser software called YouthUG, which blocks access to pornographic material on any gadget.

The app was developed by the group known as Kiira ICT Elites consisting students Mathew Mwesigwe, Eli Haggai Ocen, Magezi Kirunda, Nicholas Nabukosi and Favour Haumba.

Mwesigwe, the group captain, said there is over exposure to explicit content on the Internet in schools and at home, which has led to sexual permissiveness.

He said the app will filter the information before young people access it. Additionally, there are advert pop-ups which trick users into downloading content or linking to pornographic and illegal downloading sites and may expose gadgets to malware. An automatic advert-blocker feature is active in the YouthUG web browser to block ads and prevents users from being lured into viewing pornographic content and inappropriate data.

Other advantages
Mwesigwe said their app is equipped with a speech recognition component to cater for people with impairments.  Users can interact with the software verbally or by text command and feedback is either audio for the blind or text for those with hearing impairments, depending on the user's preference.

The software will also be usable in several Ugandan languages, including Swahili and Luganda, so that users can select the language most convenient for them.

Kirunda said the software will reduce expenses on data as the designed search engine will be accessible off-line on all networks to suit youth in remote areas and those who cannot afford data.

How It works
According to Mwesigwe, the YouthUG project consists of a custom search-engine and a web-browser (windows-based) designed to operate side by side.

When a topic is searched in the YouthUG browser, the modified search engine will filter the search results and eliminate any explicit-pornographic content and media, as well as irrelevant data. This is through displaying results from only trusted and verified sites such as Wikipedia.

The YouthUG search engine's domain is also accessible offline on all networks where an Only-Text version of the engine is displayed.

Mwesigwe said after a search, only text information from websites is shown to users who cannot afford Internet charges.