Kiosk Software

What is Kiosk Software and what does it do? As the name suggests, special software is needed for all public Kiosks due to security reasons. You must have seen these Kiosks in public places such as shopping malls, financial institutions, etc. These special Kiosks are there to offer information. Users are allowed to interact with the Kiosks due to the software being installed in them.

The primary reason why software is needed because such Kiosks are connected to the public network – namely, the Internet. When you connect a computer to the Internet, you are putting the machine at risk. You do not want the user to access the standard web browser because that will put too much control into the hands of the users, which can eventually lead to problems and the Kiosks will fail.

So special Kiosk software is created to allow Kiosk owners to design custom browsing menus so that users can only access information that they are supposed to access and other info will be blocked. Access to the operating system and all other applications are also blocked using Kiosk software.

Internet Kiosk Software

Let’s say you walk into a shopping mall today and wanted to look for a specific shop. You spotted an Internet Kiosk with touch screen interactive function. So you use it to try and find what you are looking for. You would immediately have noticed that only limited options are presented to you on the screen – usually using bright big buttons. You cannot enter any URLs. Nor can you access anything besides selecting those options made available to you.

You choose form the options and you eventually find what you want – the location of the store. You can walk away without resetting the software back to the Home Menu. The Kiosk Software will do this on your behalf. After a few minutes (depending on configuration), the Kiosk will reset back to its homepage.

Not all Kiosks have touch screen functionality (though its more or less the norm these days). Some Kiosks have keyboards, which can lead to even more problems. For instance, pressing CTRL ALT DELETE can effectively reboot the machine. So special keys need to be disabled and this is achieved using Kiosk Software.

High quality Kiosk software are often easy to customize and update. Remote updating is a much needed feature because no one wants to visit hundreds of Kiosks just to update the software!