When my kids started using delta chat, they were writing with friends which was really cool. After they found out how to play games with delta chat, they stopped writing and started gaming. For me it was quite sad to see how the social interaction died. There were also parents which restricted access to DC for their kids due to gaming. I think webxdc limits the benefit of DC as a family messenger. I tried to block access to webxdc apps which worked on android by changing the app picker url. But on desktop this option does not exist. Then I tried to block the url in the linux host file which did not have any effect. Does someone have ideas how to block webxdc apps for kids?
gaming in the chat with their friends is still social interaction
you raise a good point for sure, but i wonder if those small games are so dangerous… We are not talking about games that can access the web and have lootbox and stuff to make you come back etc.
Probably the best way would be a fork
It would be great if you could block single player apps! Unfortunately, the kids will sooner or later find out that they can download the packages from the browser and propagate it directly among group of friends even if most of them had it blocked.
On desktop, a workaround is as simple as installing or configuring a client in a way that it does not have access to the GPU or is buggy, because the sandbox window will then fail to open.
You can disable the WebView service (and a few more) on Android to get a similar effect. I think installing a screen time logging app and agreeing upon ground rules would be more productive in general (i.e., x minutes of gaming after they finished homework or chores, etc).
You could set up your own chatmail server that blocked all large attachments, such as those above 200kB (or even above 4kB if you wouldn’t like to allow using images either) or perhaps filter the network connection in a similar way.
Related:
Thanks for your replies. My kids do not have browser access, so they can not download the apps from the website. For me it would help just to block the access to the app picker which I can do on android by changing the app store URL. Does someone know if this feature is also planed for the desktop version?
yes.
desktop will also get the option with one of the next versions, iOS just got it with 2.49.2
Great, this will be a workaround for me 
Ok they can still get apps from friends but it is a first step. Thanks to all.
Until then, you could also block access to apps.testrun.org:443 by IP:
sudo ufw deny from 65.21.231.22
sudo ufw deny from 2a01:4f9:6a:1dcb::2
I would use a Chatmail client with no WebXDC functionality. WebXDCs aren’t particularly useful to me, and it adds a lot of attack surface and dependencies. I’d prefer a lighter, easier-to-package client that more of my friends could/would install.
I understand that WebXDCs can be used collaboratively, but the people I know using WebXDC are actually using it for single-player games; a standalone WebXDC-box app would work just as well for them.