# Safe Exam Browser: what it locks down, what it cannot see | Evalmee > Safe Exam Browser locks down the machine, not the room. What it blocks, the concrete problems it creates for an institution, and how to use it with Evalmee on the Organisation plan. Source: https://evalmee.com/en/safe-exam-browser/ FR: https://evalmee.com/fr/safe-exam-browser/ ES: https://evalmee.com/es/safe-exam-browser/ ES-ES: https://evalmee.com/es-es/safe-exam-browser/ IT: https://evalmee.com/it/safe-exam-browser/ --- ## Safe Exam Browser with Evalmee: what it does, what it does not What Safe Exam Browser locks down, what it cannot see, the problems it creates for an institution, and how to use it with Evalmee. Safe Exam Browser is a free, open-source lockdown browser developed at ETH Zurich. It keeps the participant inside the exam on their computer, but sees neither a phone, nor paper notes, nor another person. It can be used with Evalmee on the Organisation plan, on request, with a configuration file supplied by Evalmee. Evalmee does not require it for all that: by default, the exam takes place in a standard browser, with an optional desktop app for Mac and Windows. ### What is Safe Exam Browser? Safe Exam Browser, or SEB, is a free, open-source application that replaces the browser during an exam. It is developed and maintained at ETH Zurich, and downloads from safeexambrowser.org for Windows, macOS and iOS. Once launched, SEB puts the computer into kiosk mode: full screen with no address bar, no application switching, no keyboard shortcuts, no screenshots, and only the addresses its configuration allows. It is the textbook [secure exam browser](https://evalmee.com/en/assessment-glossary/#secure-exam-browser): stronger control than a mere restriction inside the browser, at the cost of an installation on every machine. Everything is decided in a configuration file, prepared by the institution for each exam. It sets the start address, the reachable sites, the password needed to quit, and whether the participant may switch to another application or reload the page. The same file can be reused from one exam to the next, as long as the address and the rules do not change. ### What does it lock down, and what can it not see? SEB locks down the computer, not the room. It blocks other applications, other tabs, shortcuts and free navigation. It sees neither a phone on the participant's lap, nor a second computer, nor paper notes, nor the person dictating the answers. That limit is not a design flaw: a [browser lockdown](https://evalmee.com/en/assessment-glossary/#browser-lockdown) acts on the workstation and nothing else. Two points are often misunderstood. A connected second monitor is only blocked if the configuration expressly forbids it. And SEB records nothing: if a doubt arises after the exam, there is no video, no screenshot and no log to go back to. Evalmee works the other way round: rather than preventing, it detects and reports. The two approaches do not cover the same ground, and neither sees what happens away from the machine. The table below separates the three perimeters. | What SEB locks down | What Evalmee detects | What neither one sees | | --- | --- | --- | | Other applications and other tabs | Leaving the exam screen, with an alert to the participant and a screenshot | A phone lying next to the machine | | Keyboard shortcuts and screenshots | Switching to another application, with a screenshot | A second computer | | Navigation outside the allowed addresses | Copy and paste | Paper notes | | A second monitor, only if the configuration forbids it | The presence of a second monitor | A person dictating the answers | | The quit button, protected by a password | A suspicious browser extension, with a screenshot | Whatever happens outside the webcam's field of view | Three lists read by column; the rows do not correspond to one another. ### What does it cost an institution? Three cost items, all borne by the institution: an installation on every computer, a configuration file per exam, and technical support on exam day. The installation needs administrator rights on the machine. In a room, on computers the institution manages, it is done once and holds. Remotely, on each participant's personal computer, it fails on a share of the machines, and not always the day before: an antivirus that blocks it, an OS version too old, an account without rights. Those cases land on the institution's support desk, not the vendor's. The configuration file is prepared and tested before each exam. A mistyped address or an overly strict rule only shows up at launch, when the participants are already at their screens. ### What problems do institutions run into with Safe Exam Browser? Always the same ones, and they are not faults in the software: they are what a lockdown browser is. Installing on every machine, writing a correct configuration, keeping it current, absorbing the incidents at launch, and living with what the lockdown takes away from the candidate. Safe Exam Browser is free, open and documented by its own project, and nothing below is a hidden flaw: it is what locking down a candidate's machine asks of an institution. The same points come back with any lockdown browser. Two things help in reading the table. Most of these limits are configurable: allowing a calculator or an online dictionary, tolerating a second monitor, permitting a page reload, all of it is written in the configuration file, and that is where the work moves to. But the exam's [digital accessibility](https://evalmee.com/en/assessment-glossary/#digital-accessibility) is then decided inside that file: an assistive tool that lives in another application has to be planned for in advance, when it can be. | Problem | What happens | What it takes | | --- | --- | --- | | Installing on every machine | The application is installed machine by machine, with administrator rights. A restricted account or an institutional policy is enough to refuse it. | A managed deployment in a room; remotely, installation instructions and someone to call for the machines that resist. | | The machines it was not built for | The client exists for Windows, macOS and iOS. A Chromebook or a Linux machine will not run it. | Lending a machine, opening a room, or accepting another arrangement for the candidates concerned. | | One configuration file per exam | Start address, allowed sites, quit password, permission to reload the page: everything is decided file by file, exam by exam. | Preparing and testing the configuration before each session, then distributing it to the right people. | | One error in the file blocks the whole group | A mistyped address or an overly strict rule only shows up at launch, when the candidates are already at their screens. | A rehearsal on a real machine, and a fallback procedure written before the exam. | | The keys that have to match | The exam server checks two keys computed from the configuration, the Config Key and the Browser Exam Key. If the file changes on one side and not the other, access is refused. | Regenerating, redistributing, and checking that everyone launches the expected version. | | Client and system updates | A client version other than the expected one may no longer match the configuration. macOS, for its part, asks on first launch for system permissions the candidate grants themselves. | Announcing the expected version in advance, and leaving the candidate time to update and to grant those permissions. | | The software SEB refuses | Depending on the configuration, it refuses to start, or interrupts the exam, when it detects a virtual machine or a screen-sharing and remote-control tool. An antivirus or a corporate VPN can, for its part, prevent the installation or the connection. | A list of applications to close, sent with the exam notice, and a trial run before the day. | | Kiosk mode when the exam breaks down | As long as SEB is running, the machine is locked. If the page freezes or the connection drops, the candidate has no tab and no mail client to report the problem, and quitting requires the quit password. | A quit password known to the invigilators, and a fallback channel that does not go through the locked computer. | | What the candidate is deprived of | Calculator, dictionary, reading aid, spell checker: none of it is available unless it was allowed in the configuration, and a tool that lives in another application stays out of reach. | Listing the needs, access arrangements included, before writing the configuration. | | Support at launch time | Incidents do not spread out over the day: they all arrive the moment the group starts. | People reachable throughout the opening window, and a decision already made for the candidate who cannot launch SEB. | | What the lockdown does not cover | A phone, a second computer, paper notes, a person sitting next to them: none of it comes into scope, whatever the configuration says. | Human invigilation, or complementary detection, in proportion to the stakes. | Eleven common difficulties, what they produce on exam day, and the work they move onto the institution. These points can be checked in the project's own documentation, on safeexambrowser.org, and in the Moodle plugin documentation. No figures are quoted here: we have measured none. ### What a teacher who used it says On 16 July 2026, in a webinar run by ANSTIA, Gianluca Quercini, a teacher and researcher at CentraleSupélec in France, described the tool he used before Evalmee for his continuous assessment. Safe Exam Browser was part of it. He first notes that this previous tool had no native cheating detection, then says the answer adopted was a secure exam browser, Safe Exam Browser, and that it was « pas impeccable », not flawless: students ended up getting around the barriers. Those are his words, about his own use, on a given date, and not a measurement. Both passages are linked below, to the second. That does not mean a lockdown is pointless. It says, in other words, what the project's own documentation says too: the lockdown covers the machine, and a determined candidate looks elsewhere. The full session, with its chapters, can be watched from the [webinars page](https://evalmee.com/en/webinars/), and the case study below carries its timestamped transcript. [9 min 49 s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dJYnDMnAix8&t=589s) [10 min 10 s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dJYnDMnAix8&t=610s) [Case study: a quiz at the end of every tutorial session, for 816 students at CentraleSupélec](/en/blog/continuous-assessment-816-students-centralesupelec/) ### How does Moodle use it? Moodle has integrated Safe Exam Browser as standard since version 3.9. In a quiz's settings, the option 'Require the use of Safe Exam Browser' refuses any attempt opened from an ordinary browser. Three modes exist: configure manually from [Moodle](https://evalmee.com/en/assessment-glossary/#moodle), upload your own configuration file, or rely on the configuration of the SEB client installed on the machine. In manual configuration, Moodle generates the file itself, and a few checkboxes decide whether the participant sees a quit button, may switch applications, may reload the page. Verification rests on two keys computed from the configuration, the Config Key and the Browser Exam Key. Moodle compares them with those SEB presents on every request, and thus knows that the connecting browser really is SEB, with that exact configuration, and not an ordinary browser posing as it. The detail of those keys belongs to the Moodle and SEB documentation, not to this page. An institution whose exams live in Moodle can also open Evalmee from the course over LTI 1.3: enrolments synchronise and grades flow back to the gradebook, with no lockdown browser involved. The exact scope is described on the [integrations page](https://evalmee.com/en/product/integrations/). ### Evalmee with or without Safe Exam Browser Three paths, and only one of them needs Safe Exam Browser. By default, the exam takes place in a standard browser. When the institution wants to go further, the optional desktop app for Mac and Windows is easier to use and to deploy than a lockdown browser. And Safe Exam Browser can be used with Evalmee on the Organisation plan, on request, with a configuration file supplied by Evalmee. Let us start with the third path. An institution set on Safe Exam Browser contacts the Evalmee team before the exam: the team supplies the configuration file to use. It is available on the [Organisation](https://evalmee.com/en/pricing/) plan, and it is arranged case by case. In every other case, the desktop app is enough, and it spares the deployment work a lockdown browser demands. Without a lockdown browser, Evalmee does not lock down the machine: it detects specific events during the exam, gathers them in an integrity report with a risk score, and lets the examiner decide. Full screen is mandatory, and the participant is warned when they leave the exam screen. Copy and paste and the presence of a second monitor are detected. Screenshots are triggered by four known events: leaving the window, using another application, leaving full screen, and the detection of a suspicious browser extension. If the institution enables it, the webcam and microphone record the whole session. None of this needs a lockdown browser, and all of it is set out on the [proctoring page](https://evalmee.com/en/product/monitor/). The integrity report gathers those events, their timestamps and a risk score for [misconduct](https://evalmee.com/en/assessment-glossary/#exam-misconduct). That score is not a verdict: it closes no exam and flags nobody in place of the examiner, who alone decides. That is the frame the GDPR sets for [proctoring](https://evalmee.com/en/assessment-glossary/#proctoring): a system proportionate to the stakes of the exam, candidates informed beforehand, and no decision taken by a machine alone. This path has a downside, and it is accepted: in a standard browser, Evalmee cannot stop a participant from opening another tab. It sees it, timestamps it, captures it and reports it. An institution that wants to forbid rather than record goes through a lockdown browser, which is the request described above. ### The optional desktop app This is the recommended path when an institution wants more than an ordinary browser without carrying the deployment cost of Safe Exam Browser. The app exists for Mac and Windows. It is optional, it simplifies the candidate's experience, and the exam can still be taken without it, from a browser. It is the only software Evalmee offers to install, and nobody is forced to: a participant without administrator rights on their machine takes the exam in their browser with the same detections. It is easier to use and to deploy than Safe Exam Browser. The paper itself is never downloadable in advance: it is loaded when the participant opens the exam. This page does not describe an Evalmee 'kiosk mode': the term refers to what Safe Exam Browser does to the machine, not to an Evalmee feature. ### When a lockdown browser is still justified In a room, on computers the institution owns and administers, a lockdown browser is a reasonable choice: the installation is done once, support is on site, and the room sees what the software cannot. Remotely, on each participant's personal computer, the equation changes: the installation becomes the first cause of incidents, and the lockdown still covers neither the phone, nor the second machine, nor the person sitting next to them. That is where event detection, optional webcam recording and an examiner who decides deliver something the lockdown alone does not. An institution that imposes Safe Exam Browser on its machines can run an Evalmee exam on them. It is available on the Organisation plan, on request: contact the Evalmee team before the exam and it supplies the configuration file to use. ### Frequently asked questions #### Can Safe Exam Browser be used with Evalmee? Yes, on the Organisation plan and on request: contact the Evalmee team before the exam and it supplies the configuration file to use. On the other plans, and in most cases, the optional desktop app for Mac and Windows is enough: it is easier to use and to deploy than a lockdown browser. #### Is Safe Exam Browser required with Evalmee? No. By default, the exam takes place in a standard browser, with an optional desktop app for Mac and Windows. Safe Exam Browser remains possible for an institution set on it: on the Organisation plan, on request, with a configuration file supplied by Evalmee. #### What is Safe Exam Browser? A free, open-source lockdown browser developed and maintained at ETH Zurich, downloadable from safeexambrowser.org for Windows, macOS and iOS. It replaces the browser during the exam: full screen with no address bar, no application switching, no keyboard shortcuts, no screenshots, and only the addresses a configuration file allows. #### What can Safe Exam Browser not see? It locks down the computer, not the room. It sees neither a phone lying next to the machine, nor a second computer, nor paper notes, nor the person dictating the answers. A second monitor is only blocked if the configuration expressly forbids it. And it records nothing: after the exam there is no video, no screenshot and no log to go back to. #### What are the problems with Safe Exam Browser? Those of any lockdown browser. The installation is done machine by machine and needs administrator rights; the client exists only for Windows, macOS and iOS, so neither Chromebooks nor Linux. A configuration file is prepared for each exam, and an error inside it only shows up at launch, when the group is already at the screens. The two keys computed from that file have to match between the machine and the server. Depending on the settings, SEB refuses to start when it meets a virtual machine or a screen-sharing tool, and an antivirus or a VPN can block the installation. Once launched, kiosk mode locks the machine: if the exam freezes, quitting requires the quit password. Finally, the candidate has only the tools the configuration allows, calculator and dictionary included. #### How does Evalmee monitor an exam without locking down the browser? Full screen is mandatory, and the participant is warned when they leave the exam screen. Copy and paste and the presence of a second monitor are detected. Four events trigger a screenshot: leaving the window, using another application, leaving full screen, and the detection of a suspicious browser extension. If the institution enables it, the webcam and microphone record the whole session. The integrity report gathers those events, their timestamps and a risk score, and the examiner is the one who decides. #### How does Moodle use Safe Exam Browser? Moodle has integrated it as standard since version 3.9. In a quiz's settings, the option 'Require the use of Safe Exam Browser' refuses any attempt opened from an ordinary browser. Three modes exist: manual configuration from Moodle, uploading your own configuration file, or relying on the configuration of the SEB client installed on the machine. ### Proctor your next exam with nothing to install Try Evalmee for free and pick the level of proctoring the stakes call for.