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Free for colleges
Keep your college students safe online
Ripple BrowserShield is a proactive online safeguarding tool. It intercepts harmful online searches and connects college students to trusted mental health support. It protects all managed devices, at no cost to your college.
Private and secure by design. Free and ready to install today.
The pressure
Your students need more support than ever.You needn’t face this challenge alone.
College and sixth form students are navigating A-levels, BTECs and the pressures of young adult life – often without the safety nets that younger pupils have. Many students will search online for harmful content when at a crisis point.
As a safeguarding or student support lead, you have a legal and personal responsibility. But no safeguarding strategy can cover every private moment – and some students will never reach out for help.
Ripple BrowserShield creates a layer of protection for students at a time of risk and directs them to the support they need.
72%
of colleges see an increase in 16–18-year-olds experiencing suicidal thoughts
Association of Colleges
1 in 3
young people aged 17–24 have self-harmed or attempted to self-harm at some point
YoungMinds
>26%
of suicide cases in under 20s have a suicide-related search history
The Lancet & University of Manchester
Protecting learners and staff at 600+ educational institutions across the UK & abroad
Free for colleges
Protect your students with Ripple BrowserShield
Enable early intervention and support for students in crisis - at no cost to your college
Ripple BrowserShield – Free and ready to install
Ripple BrowserShield provides free browser-based protection on college-managed devices and comes ready to install.
1.9m+
people protected every week
110K+
harmful searches intercepted to date
15+
high-risk categories covered
How Ripple saves lives
Simple. Safe. Secure.
Ripple BrowserShield creates an online safety net for when a student is at their most vulnerable. If they search on the Internet for something harmful, support is already there – private and non-judgmental.
It works safely and invisibly in the background on college-managed laptops and computers.
Student searches online for harmful content
Ripple technology identifies high-risk search terms related to self-harm or suicide.
Calm screen intercepts the search
A message of hope appears on the student's device before any harmful content is displayed.
Student is guided towards support
Free helplines and mental health services are shown, with encouragement to seek help.
Privacy by design
No personal data collected or browsing history stored
Built to the highest standards
ISO 27001 • ISO 9001 Cyber Essentials
Why colleges install it
Covers the gap between a student's crisis point and the support available
Free for further education and sixth form colleges - no procurement approval needed
Supports DSLs, student services and counselling teams
Runs alongside your existing filtering and safeguarding tools
Easily configured for 16–18 and adult learner age groups separately
View options
Can be customised to signpost your college's own support services alongside national resources.*
* Fees apply
View options
Best for:
Library and shared computers
Managed laptops in digital learning environments
Student and staff laptops with managed browsers
Trusted by your peers
Discover why the University of Portsmouth counts on us for online safeguarding.
Built for online safeguarding
Proactive digital intervention when needed most
World-leading harmful content classification
Protect students with specialist digital crisis intervention.
Our digital safety technology is built by experts and enhanced by AI. It identifies and responds real-time to thousands of high-risk search patterns online relating to self-harm, suicide, substance misuse, gambling harms, financial struggles and more.
Going beyond standard filters
Life-saving support at high-risk search moments.
While traditional web filters block access to websites, Ripple BrowserShield identifies harmful search intent. Instead of blocking, it intervenes with messages of hope and guides students to trusted mental health support.
Privacy-first crisis intervention
Safeguard learners, while protecting their privacy.
Ripple BrowserShield does monitor, track or collect any personally identifiable information or browsing history. It offers support privately and anonymously, so that students can feel safe when seeking help.
Strengthens your existing safeguarding provision
Extend the reach of your student support team, college counsellors or DSLs (Designated Safeguarding Leads).
Students searching for harmful content can be directed to your own support services, as well as national helplines.
In their words
What our education clients are saying
“We have deployed Ripple on all university-owned devices that are available to staff, and to students who are studying on campus using our equipment or who have loaned one of our laptops. Colleagues report its ease in relation to the process of adding the extension to our systems and did not hesitate to support its instalment.”
Clare Dickens MBE, Academic Lead Mental Health and Well-being
University of Wolverhampton
“Ripple’s software is now live on all our University owned devices, hitting 3510 staff machines and 3511 student machines. We thank you for all your hard work your organisation continues to do and for the opportunity for our student and staff to benefit from this amazing software.”
De Montfort University
“Ripple is such an important, non-intrusive factor in suicide prevention – pressing the pause button and giving opportunities to get different thinking in.”
Anna Robinson, Mental Health & Wellbeing Lead
Birmingham Education Partnership
Getting started
Five simple steps to protecting your students
Setting up Ripple BrowserShield for your students is fast and easy.
Explore more ways to protect students when online
Ripple NetworkShield
Campus-wide, subscription-based protection
For any student and staff device connected to your Wi-Fi network. Customisable, with additional coverage of over 90 harmful categories available, including illegal and illicit content.
Ripple NetworkShield
Campus-wide, subscription-based protection
For any student and staff device connected to your Wi-Fi network. Customisable, with additional coverage of over 90 harmful categories available, including illegal and illicit content.