Forward facing locked down machines... kiosk?

Question

Hey everyone,
So I have done a lot of research on this topic, but have yet to find an end-all solution to my conundrum. I have many machines in my network that are forward facing and public use reference terminals that connect to a database of books and things. These
machines are not and should not be used to casual internet browsing so we have manually locked them down. These machines currently run IE10 Win7x32. The windows side locking down is no problem. But we are having a BIG issue with the current way we allow specific
sites and lock out all others. 
In our system, we have an abundance of allowed sites for quick research purposes that these machines are allowed to access. Still technically reference information. For the sake of argument, we have about 25 sites including the main database site that should
be allowed through a proxy or other filtering system. Currently, we have this proxy based with exceptions built into IE... however, there is around a 255 char limit on that input box (for whatever reason).
So that brings me to my current solution that is not quite working correctly. I have configured a .PAC script and stored it on a server that these machines can access and an msi for IE10 branding using the IEAK for IE10. This .PAC script does not seem to
be working the way it should. I got the idea from a site I didn't save, but the basic idea is below:
function FindProxyForURL(url, host)
// variable strings to return
var proxy_yes = "PROXY 255.255.255.255:8080";
var proxy_no = "DIRECT";
if (shExpMatch(url, "*.google.com")) { return proxy_no; }
// Proxy anything else with yes
return proxy_yes;
So, my understanding is this would run when sites are accessed, if it matches the if statements it passes and if it doesn't, it defaults to proxy_yes which doesn't exist and thus doesn't load. The ADMX configures the proxy itself and everything should be
great. 
My main question: is there a better way to allow sites through to a machine WITHOUT loading the pages first. A simple whitelist/blacklist doesn't necessarily work because it, as far as I understand, still loads the pages but does not display them. Currently,
it looks like IEAK is the only way to correctly manipulate these settings in internet explorer 10+, unless I'm getting that wrong. It doesn't seem like the list from our previous installation from GP is being overridden using this method, and it doesn't
apply to new machines connected to the policy. Of course, I know it is applying because other functions, like the content rating system that I accidentally left on, have caused some problems in the past. 
We will be upgrading these machines to newer optiplex models and installing Windows 8, so if there is a more effective solution that only works in windows 8, I am willing to try it. 
Thanks in advance for the help, you guys are always awesome! 

Answer 1

Hi,
>>Currently, it looks like IEAK is the only way to correctly manipulate these settings in internet explorer 10+, unless I'm getting that wrong.
In addition to IEAK 10, to configure proxy for IE 10 on Windows 7, if our most up-to-date domain controller is Windows Server 2012 or R2, we can use Group Policy Preferences
Internet Settings extension to configure the proxy setting. Besides, we can also choose to install Remote Server Administrative Tools on a Windows 8 or 8.1 client and manage group policy settings from this client.
Moreover, another way is that we can try using Group Policy Preferences Registry extension to configure the proxy settings for IE10 on Windows 7.
Regarding this point, the following thread can be referred to as reference.
Proxy settings not applying to IE above 8
http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/3b0f54d7-7293-49dc-9e3f-e8799c20265b/proxy-settings-not-applying-to-ie-above-8?forum=winserverGP
Best regards,
Frank Shen