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Ask HN: How do I make sure my non-technical parents are safe online?
61–70 of 215 posts
Re: Ask HN: How do I make sure my non-technical parents are safe online?
#62Avoid Linux, Windows, etc. For non tech users, iOS is pretty safe. Ipad + iPhone and you're good to go. Leave the notebooks and PCs in the 80s where they belong.
Choice of operating system won't affect whether or not people type away their details into random websites. Putting Windows and Linux in the same box and pushing iOS over them is also puzzling. Why would someone's non-technically literate parents happen to be running a Linux distribution on their personal computers and why would that make them more susceptible to giving their details away than running OSX?
OS X - it wouldn’t make a difference. But, apps are tightly sandboxed with iOS and it doesn’t even allow some of the permissions that Android does - like intercepting phone calls and text messages.
Re: Ask HN: How do I make sure my non-technical parents are safe online?
#63Once security keys are enrolled they are very easy to use and your parents can frankly probably just keep them plugged into their computer. Between that and antivirus with MacOS (or just using a Pixebook) that should cut down on a lot of attack vectors.
Re: Ask HN: How do I make sure my non-technical parents are safe online?
#64I don't know if this is any good, but I've seen TV ads for a tablet and service specifically meant for non-technical older people. It uses cellular service so there is no need for them to even have WiFi. It's called "GrandPad". Here is their FAQ [1].
Re: Ask HN: How do I make sure my non-technical parents are safe online?
#65Get them an iPad.
Seriously.
Re: Ask HN: How do I make sure my non-technical parents are safe online?
#66Can recommend Chromebook from personal experience. Auto-updates painlessly. Probably worth getting one with touchscreen and ability to run Android Apps. I've just updated my mum's one to Acer Chromebook R11 CB5-132T (old one was no longer getting updates after c. 5 years)
Chromebooks are great, but there is certainly still some risk if extensions are enabled. My daughter was having problems with her Chromebook, and I found that a bunch of shady extensions had been installed (I had a flashback to the 90's and toolbars). Apparently they were masquerading as games and themes.
I guess you could solve that by making it a "managed" Chromebook. Not sure if that's possible to set up for a non-corporate/school environment though :)
Also: install ad-blocker of course!
Re: Ask HN: How do I make sure my non-technical parents are safe online?
#67i was discussing this with my parents and uncle
im trying to get them to use a password manager and at least using chrome with ublock origin, teaching them how to interact with elements etc.
its really tough out here
Re: Ask HN: How do I make sure my non-technical parents are safe online?
#68The number one thing you can do to help them is talk to them about being conned / scammed. That's by far the most likely way for them to get victimized online, and the only way that's seriously affected anyone I know. Since they're not technical, their natural self-defense against this kind of this has trouble functioning online. Talk to them about real world analogs to pop-up ads that look like virus scanner alerts,…
I guess the scammers have a larger market due to the internet, but someone who has lived must have been exposed to scams many times in their long life!?
Re: Ask HN: How do I make sure my non-technical parents are safe online?
#69dont let them touch social media
Re: Ask HN: How do I make sure my non-technical parents are safe online?
#70I work for a phone company, Community Phone, whose majority customers are seniors. We periodically check in with our customers over text message (helping make sure they achieve their goals, like using Uber, or whatever... which is our business: to enable an improvement in overall quality of life via phones, rather than phones in themselves). As a result, many of our customers FB message/call/email/text us as a sanity…
This sounds like a very useful and safe service; thanks for providing it!