From Cradle to Grave – Protecting Users at Both Ends of the Spectrum

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Much like trying to keep our kids safe while online, we need to look at our older generation who aren’t as computer savvy as the AskWoody member base.

I’ve been asked to re-setup my mother-in-law’s existing laptop.  She seems to find every pop-scam and calls whatever tech support pops up, and well, you know the rest.  My thinking is to format the laptop, setup the admin user (without passing along the password), and then setup her account as a “normal” user.  Setting the DNS servers to something like CloudFlare’s Family 1.1.1.3 or OpenDNS Family Shield.  After that, I’m not really certain what direction to go, specifically with the browser.

It would be nice if the browser were always sandboxed.  That way when she stumbles across the next latest and greatest scam and gives someone remote access, they won’t find her treasure trove of who-knows-what.  Recommendations?

I was considering installing Brave, turning off all it’s crypto stuff, enabling it shields, and various privacy and security settings.  Adding uBlock Orgin, Privacy Badger, and DuckDuckGo Privacy essentials.  Or, are their “pediatric friendly” browsers that can be adapted to “geriatric friendly”, too?  Any other browser extensions to shelter grandkids and grandparents, alike?

How about defaulting the search engine to something filtered?  Perhaps editing the hosts files to redirect (CNAME) google.com bing.com and the like to safe.duckduckgo.com?

Finally, if I can only figure out how to redirect temu.com amazon.com ebay.com and the like to endless YouTube cat videos, my journey would be complete.

Maybe it’s best to toss the traditional Windows laptop in the trash, and get a Chromebook instead?

In all serious, though, anyone tackled such an issue?  Recommendations are certainly requested and welcomed.  Perhaps AskWoody could write a newsletter article someday to address such a need.

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F A Kramer

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Casey S wrote:

Finally, if I can only figure out how to redirect temu.com amazon.com ebay.com and the like to endless YouTube cat videos, my journey would be complete.

You can redirect them using the HOSTS file.

May the Forces of good computing be with you!

RG

PowerShell & VBA Rule!
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Casey S wrote:

She seems to find every pop-scam and calls whatever tech support pops up, and well, you know the rest.

I’m a long time user of Bitdefender and it’s lightening fast blocking scam websites. Obviously not free, but there may be a trial offer she/you could try. Bitdefender also installs their browser anti-tracker extension is robust. I use that plus uBlock, Disconnect, and Privacy Badger

I was considering installing Brave, turning off all it’s crypto stuff, enabling it shields, and various privacy and security settings.  Adding uBlock Orgin, Privacy Badger, and DuckDuckGo Privacy essentials.

I’m a Brave user and it’s shields feature is helpful.

It would be nice if the browser were always sandboxed.

Sandboxie (Github) will work with Brave

Resetting a machine is time consuming.  Hope you can find some preventive answers going forward.

Desktop Asus TUF X299 Mark 1, CPU: Intel Core i7-7820X Skylake-X 8-Core 3.6 GHz, RAM: 32GB, GPU: Nvidia GTX 1050 Ti 4GB. Display: Four 27" 1080p screens 2 over 2 quad.

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Casey S wrote:

Much like trying to keep our kids safe while online, we need to look at our older generation who aren’t as computer savvy as the AskWoody member base.

Just a suggestion: Use one of the well known AV Internet Apps (such as Eset Internet Security). Setup up the Parental Control with passwords you only know. It blocks dangerous scam sites as well as porn sites. You can enter her age and this won’t block sites requiring a minimum age but still block scam sites with an updated list of the sites with the virus updates (also block dangerous downloads). You can even customize the list to add and remove sites to be blocked. After all, this time in one’s life is often referred to as a second childhood. Second childhood needs protection like first childhood.

HTH, Dana:))

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It may be a little over the top, but have you considered Windows Sandbox? If she fires that up, then proceeds to Edge for browsing, her browsing activities would be segregated from the rest of her PC. This approach has some obvious drawbacks, such as the ability to save and navigate to bookmarks. That could be overcome by signing into a Microsoft account and syncing Edge. A bit cumbersome and time consuming I know, but something to consider.

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