HigherLife, Brooklyn · Updated November 2026 · How we write these guides

How to Make a Mac Kosher

Why the Mac matters as much as the phone

Most of the conversation in our community is about phones, and for good reason. But the Mac on the kitchen table or the desk in the study is often the open window nobody is watching. Pew Research Center found in 2024 that 88% of American teens have or have access to a desktop or laptop computer at home. In Israel, the Israel Democracy Institute found that ultra-Orthodox adults who go online connect mainly through a home computer (42%) rather than a mobile phone (30%).

A Mac is also harder to give up than a phone. It holds homework and the school portal, the family photos, a business, the bank statements, the Zoom shiur and the document for a simcha. A phone can be swapped for a simpler phone. A Mac usually cannot be swapped for anything. So the real question is rarely whether the Mac stays. It is how the Mac reaches the web.

That shapes the whole approach. A kosher Mac is not an empty Mac. It is the same Mac, with every program and file in place, where the web arrives through one browser the family trusts. If you are also thinking about a Windows laptop, our guide to a kosher computer covers it.

How the web reaches a Mac

When families ask what to worry about on a Mac, they usually name one thing: Safari. In practice the web arrives in a few ways, and a setup that covers only the first leaves the others open.

• The browser it came with. Safari sits in the Dock of a new Mac, one click from anything.
• A new browser. Any other browser is a free download that takes about a minute. A setup that watches one browser and not the next lasts until someone downloads the next.
• Links inside everything else. A link in an email, a document or a PDF opens in a browser. Families use these all day, and few think about where they land.
• Programs with their own web window. Some programs show web pages inside themselves. It is a fair question for any setup, ours included: what exactly is covered beyond the browser?

Keep these in mind through the rest of this guide. The honest test of any setup, free or paid, is what it does about each of them.

What Apple's own tools do on a Mac

Apple builds parental controls into the Mac, and they are free. Apple says its parental controls are redesigned in version 27 of iOS, iPadOS, macOS and watchOS, with new quick actions and more flexible schedules and time limits. Apple also notes the new features need version 27 on every device in the Family Sharing group.

For the web, Apple's page offers three settings: unrestricted, "Limit Adult Websites," and "Approved Websites Only." In Apple's words, the middle one allows "access to all websites except detected adult websites," and the last allows "only the websites you approve." Notice the word detected. A detection setting catches what it detects.

The detail that matters most for a Mac is where Apple says the setting lives. Apple's page says its Apps and Websites settings "enable you to manually allow or block access to specific apps and websites in Safari." The page names Safari. It does not promise the same coverage for a browser the family downloads later.

Apple also offers a Screen Time passcode, a four-digit code separate from the unlock code that "locks your child's Screen Time settings so they can't change them on their own." For adults who set a passcode for themselves, Apple offers recovery through their own Apple Account. That is a reminder the account owner can reset, not a lock held by someone else.

For a young child with an attentive adult nearby, these tools are a real start. Their limits come from their design. They live in settings a family sets up and keeps up. They are tied to a child's account. And they were made for every kind of family, not for a Torah home.

What Google's tools do on a Mac

Many families already use Google's Family Link on a child's Android phone and assume it reaches the Mac too. Google is direct about it. Its Family Link help page says iPhones, iPads and computers other than Chromebooks cannot be managed with Family Link.

Google's page about Chrome and a child's Google Account adds that on an iPhone, iPad or computer, a child "may also have access to other browsers where Family Link settings for Chrome won't apply."

Neither is a criticism. Both companies build tools for millions of families of every kind, and they say plainly where those tools stop. A Torah home often asks for more than a general-purpose tool was built to give.

Three ways to make a Mac kosher

Families usually end up choosing among three roads. For a deeper look at the settings built into Apple devices, see our guide to parental controls.

1. Apple's built-in controls

Free, already on the Mac, and a reasonable first step for a young child. They ask more of the family the older the children get, and Apple's page ties the website settings to Safari.

2. A different computer

Some families give up the Mac and buy a simpler, locked-down computer. The questions are the ones you would ask of any closed device. What happens to the files and programs on the Mac you have now? Which programs can you add later? Who do you call when school sends a program the new computer does not allow?

3. Protection added to the Mac you own

This road changes the least. The same Mac, the same desktop, the same programs and files, with the web arriving one way. Done well, you barely notice it. Done badly, it slows the Mac, blocks the school portal on a Sunday night and can be undone by whoever sits at the keyboard. The difference is in the details, which is why there is a checklist below.

Keep the whole Mac, change only the browser

Our view, after setting up many phones and now computers: the best kosher setup is the one you hardly notice. Nobody should lose a program, a file or a setting. The only thing that changes is how the Mac reaches the web.

Here is what that means on a Mac with HigherLife:

• HigherLife is the only browser. It is the one browser in the Dock.
• Other browsers stay shut. Safari, Chrome, Firefox, Edge, Arc and the other well-known browsers do not open.
• Every page is checked.
• Google, Gmail, WhatsApp on the web and YouTube open inside the HigherLife browser, with our rules on every page.
• Nothing is erased. Every file, program and setting stays. Taking HigherLife off needs the HigherLife removal password.

We care about the last point as much as the first. A setup that takes over the whole Mac to protect the browser asks the family to give up too much, and a family that gives up too much goes looking for a way back. Children find ways around settings, which is exactly why shutting the other browsers matters more than asking everyone to promise to use only one.

Setup is done with a HigherLife rep, either in person at 1622 Coney Island Avenue in Brooklyn, by appointment, or on a phone call where we walk you through it.

Google, pictures and Torah first

Keeping adult sites out is the floor, not the goal. Most of what a family sees on an ordinary day is ordinary: news, a recipe, a school site, a search. That is where search results and pictures matter.

• Pictures shaded. People in pictures are shaded, the way you choose in My HigherLife.
• Torah first. LeHallel is in the HigherLife browser: over four hundred thousand kosher videos, thousands of shiurim and a whole library of sefarim.
• The everyday tools stay. Google and Gmail open inside HigherLife, so a family can still search, write email and find the address.

The shading is a choice, made in My HigherLife. A family decides how much shading it wants, and can change it later.

The questions most families forget: links and programs

Ask a family how the web gets onto their Mac and they will point at the browser icon. Watch the same family for a day and many pages start elsewhere: a link in a school email, a link in a document, a link in a message. Each one opens in a browser, and which browser is the question.

So ask this of every option, including ours: where do links from email and documents open? If a setup protects one browser while links land in another, the protection depends on nobody ever clicking. On a HigherLife Mac the other browsers do not open, so the question has a short answer. Ask the rep to show you on your own Mac during setup.

The second question is about programs. Some show web pages inside their own window. A browser is what HigherLife looks after, and a good company tells you exactly where its coverage ends. Ask us. We will tell you plainly, and that same plain answer is what you should expect from anyone else.

Can a kosher Mac still do the work?

This is the worry we hear most from people who run a business or work from home, and it is a fair one. A setup that gets in the way of the day gets removed by the end of the week. Many men accept protection only if it never costs them work.

The Mac is where this is easiest. Because HigherLife changes only the way the Mac reaches the web, the programs and files that make up a working day stay exactly where they were. Word, spreadsheets, Zoom, accounting software and the whole desktop stay. Nothing is erased. For the web side of work, the way forward is to ask for what you need. If a work site is blocked, you ask in My HigherLife and our support team answers within a minute. That means one Mac can serve both work and a clean home. There is no second computer and no double life.

If you came here from the phone side of the question, our guide to a kosher iPhone and our guide to a safe browser on iPhone are the matching reads.

When something is blocked that you need

Every protected Mac will, sooner or later, block something someone needs: a school program, a work site, a form. What happens next decides whether the protection stays. A setup that leaves you waiting a day is a setup that gets removed.

With HigherLife, help is within a minute. Ask in My HigherLife and our support team answers in the same minute and takes care of it for you. A real person answers, about your computer, and does the work.

My HigherLife is also where the choices live, including the picture shading, and where an adult manages every computer and phone in the family. You can change a device's level any time.

The ten-question Mac checklist

Take this to any company, or to a free setting you are considering, ours included. Two minutes with it will save you a month of regret.

For HigherLife, the answers are in this guide: the other browsers stay shut, nothing is erased, taking it off needs the removal password, help comes within a minute, and a year is $160.

When another choice is better

We set up Macs, and we would rather you choose well than choose us.

• A young child with a computer used for one thing. A very simple device, or Apple's own controls with an adult close by, may be all you need at that age.
• A family that wants no web on the computer at all. Then the answer is a computer with no internet, and a rav can help you decide whether that suits your home.
• A Mac that needs the whole open web. Some jobs depend on every site and every tool. Then the right decision may be a different kind of protection, or none on that Mac.
• The Mac you already rely on. If it holds the family's work and files, keeping it and changing only the web is usually the cheapest and least disruptive choice.

Families and communities draw these lines differently, and nobody should mock another family's choice. Where it is a question of halacha, ask your rav.

Sources

1. Apple Support, Block or allow access to apps and websites on your child's device.
2. Apple Support, What's new with parental controls in Screen Time and Family Sharing.
3. Apple Support, Set, change, and manage a Screen Time passcode on your child's device.
4. Apple iPhone User Guide, Create, change, or remove a Screen Time passcode.
5. Google For Families Help, Get started with Family Link.
6. Google For Families Help, Chrome & your child's Google Account.
7. Pew Research Center, Teens, Social Media and Technology 2024, December 12, 2024.
8. Israel Democracy Institute, Two Thirds of Ultra-Orthodox Are Online, December 30, 2021.