Ask HN: How do I protect my parents from the internet?

#1

Post by throwawaywxc » Tue, Nov 08, 2016, 2:35 PM UTC

I recently came home to find the home PC has been bricked - the boot layer has somehow been corrupted.

This is pretty remarkable given that my dad only uses it watch golf videos and edit some photos in lightroom. He may occasionally indulge in some porn cough.

I figured he'd be relatively safe as I installed an Adblocker and had Norton installed on the device but I did not realise how vulnerable he was until I found out he can't tell the difference between a pop up and a genuine desktop notification. He has even clicked through on a "You have been chosen to win an iPhone 7" link recently - he saw no harm in at least seeing what might happen.

He also likes to download videos from youtube so I taught him how to use youtube-dl but ended up downloading some malware-infected ripper because it had a more convenient UI.

How do I educate someone from such a base level?

What can I put on the PC to protect them? I avoided using scriptblockers as I don't think they are tech savvy enough to work out why a page might not be working.

Re: Ask HN: How do I protect my parents from the internet?

#2

Post by akerro » Tue, Nov 08, 2016, 3:08 PM UTC

Install them Ubuntu, KDE Neon or Mint. Works for my parents since... I dropped Windows XP.

Re: Ask HN: How do I protect my parents from the internet?

#3

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Nov 08, 2016, 3:08 PM UTC

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: How do I protect my parents from the internet?

#4

Post by rihegher » Tue, Nov 08, 2016, 3:08 PM UTC

You can start with ubuntu that is immune to most of malware and enough if your parents needs are internet + video palying and downloading + office suite

Re: Ask HN: How do I protect my parents from the internet?

#5

Post by konradb » Tue, Nov 08, 2016, 3:08 PM UTC

Not the answer you want but an ipad might limit the damage that can be done. It would remove the need for education.

Re: Ask HN: How do I protect my parents from the internet?

#6

Post by yathern » Tue, Nov 08, 2016, 3:09 PM UTC

If simply educating them on what not to do (clicking on 'free' stuff, downloading without discretion) won't work, I'd suggest switching out the OS to something a little less targetted by malware. I recently got my mom a chromebook, which she loves. You say your dad uses lightroom though, so that might not work for your use case.

Re: Ask HN: How do I protect my parents from the internet?

#7

Post by namank » Tue, Nov 08, 2016, 3:10 PM UTC

This is a very important conversation for this decade. Do post your solution on HN once you have it.

Re: Ask HN: How do I protect my parents from the internet?

#8

Post by faitswulff » Tue, Nov 08, 2016, 3:10 PM UTC

I was really hoping for a discussion on how to keep parents from watching videos about the healing properties of crystals and government chemtrail conspiracies...

...but to answer your question perhaps you can get your parents a Chromebook? I'm not sure what photo editing options exist on the platform, but hopefully it's an obscure enough platform to avoid the majority of malware.

Re: Ask HN: How do I protect my parents from the internet?

#9

Post by thomaskcr » Tue, Nov 08, 2016, 3:11 PM UTC

Use Deepfreeze or something similar. You'll mark a their documents directory as excluded and then every time they restart their machine it'll be back to the exact state it was in when you first set it up.

You don't want to have to support them using a new OS for the first time - you'll be in for a headache. I use Deepfreeze for anyone who is a "problem user" and most don't even realize they have it if it's set up right.

Re: Ask HN: How do I protect my parents from the internet?

#10

Post by dudul » Tue, Nov 08, 2016, 3:12 PM UTC

konradb wrote: post #5

Not the answer you want but an ipad might limit the damage that can be done. It would remove the need for education.

Is it still true? I would have thought that by gaining popularity Apple devices would become the target of malwares as well.