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

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

#111

Post by drdaeman »

peterwwillis wrote: post #96
Florin_Andrei wrote: post #82

> 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. Show him one of those videos with deep-sea fish that use a luminescent lure to eat smaller fish. The pop-up is the lure. The small fish is him. The Internet is like the deep sea, and it's full of lures like that. One simple criterion I give non-technical people: if it's uns…

Plus these: * If it sounds too good to be true, it is. * If anything related to it says Nigeria, run screaming. * Nothing is free and you will never win anything. * Never enter your social security number at any time for anything. * Surfing the Internet is like walking down a back alley in Hong Kong. They claim to have everything, but you probably aren't going to like it when you get it. * Illegal software and margin…

> says Nigeria

After a recent review of my spam folder (totally biased and subjective) I believe the princes are actively exploring another castles. Saw UAE sheikhs (surely, having the same last name as mine - proves the email's totally legit!) and even Russian billionaires in UK, all asking for my help to unlock transfer of a few bajillion dollars. ;) So, I don't think this recipe works reliably here.

(Guess, normal Nigerians must be really upset by 419 scammers.)

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

#112

Post by jdietrich »

Someone1234 wrote: post #109

Chromebooks cannot print. Everyone loves to recommend Chromebooks to older/less digitally literate people, and they're right to do so in most situations. However Chromebooks have one huge downside that makes them non-starters for some of that demographic: Printing is a no-go. And don't tell me about "Google Cloud Print." Cloud Printing requires a PC or Mac connected to the printer and a copy of the Chrome browser run…

>And don't tell me about "Google Cloud Print." Cloud Printing requires a PC or Mac connected to the printer and a copy of the Chrome browser running. In this scenario we're trying to replace a PC or Mac, not add to them, so Google Cloud Print is a non-starter.

There are a huge number of affordable wifi-enabled printers that support Google Cloud Print. Replacing your existing printer isn't ideal, but it's not a total dealbreaker.

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

#113

Post by i336_ »

ralphc wrote: post #44
falcolas wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This assumes an interest, willingness, and time to learn. For better or worse, not everyone can/wants to become an expert in managing these buggy and vulnerable messes we call general purpose computers. It's a big investment, an investment many of us don't remember making since it was effectively part of our childhood. That same investment, in a world with special purpose computing devices, has a very low ROI for peo…

It's also assuming you live close enough to your parents that you can go over and physically revive a bricked computer.

I just thought of a bizarre but interesting idea - an i3/i5-capable server motherboard with IPMI, and a rock-solid router running OpenVPN in front of the IPMI port.

Maybe fractionally higher power consumption, and perhaps you'd need a GPU for it, but if both ends have really decent internet, that could very legitimately work.

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

#115

Post by dragonwriter »

Someone1234 wrote: post #109

Chromebooks cannot print. Everyone loves to recommend Chromebooks to older/less digitally literate people, and they're right to do so in most situations. However Chromebooks have one huge downside that makes them non-starters for some of that demographic: Printing is a no-go. And don't tell me about "Google Cloud Print." Cloud Printing requires a PC or Mac connected to the printer and a copy of the Chrome browser run…

> And don't tell me about "Google Cloud Print." Cloud Printing requires a PC or Mac connected to the printer and a copy of the Chrome browser running.

You are mistaken. While that's an option, the primary option is to use a printer that directly supports Google cloud print.

https://www.google.com/cloudprint/learn/printers.html

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

#116

Post by reitanqild »

nitrogen wrote: post #103
peterwwillis wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Plus these: * If it sounds too good to be true, it is. * If anything related to it says Nigeria, run screaming. * Nothing is free and you will never win anything. * Never enter your social security number at any time for anything. * Surfing the Internet is like walking down a back alley in Hong Kong. They claim to have everything, but you probably aren't going to like it when you get it. * Illegal software and margin…

Learn to close windows without clicking on anything (Alt+F4 or similar) One has to be careful with this one; this can get you auto-upgraded to Win10, which not everybody wants.

This sysadmin/programmer enjoy Windows 10.

Finally I can have multiple desktops on a stock Windows PC.

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

#117

Post by i336_ »

rwhitman wrote: post #110
fredgrott wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

or if they use MS Windows make them switch browsers to Google's Chrome

OMG, that's what I thought too! But no, no, no. Chrome became her BIGGEST vector for malware! She was installing Chrome plugins, and they in turn installed a modded copy of Chromium with all kinds of toolbars and spyware, which set itself as the default. Chrome became a total disaster, worse than IE ever was. I think recent security patches have helped a bit though

Wow. This kind of thing is not particularly easy to google for - know anywhere I might be able to find out more about this?

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

#119

Post by spikej »

Someone1234 wrote: post #109

Chromebooks cannot print. Everyone loves to recommend Chromebooks to older/less digitally literate people, and they're right to do so in most situations. However Chromebooks have one huge downside that makes them non-starters for some of that demographic: Printing is a no-go. And don't tell me about "Google Cloud Print." Cloud Printing requires a PC or Mac connected to the printer and a copy of the Chrome browser run…

Well, a cloud-ready printer would solve that issue... One hurdle I've faced is lack of things like Skype. OP mentioned lightroom. Sometimes, the alternatives are not good enough, or not user-friendly enough for parents who insist on say Skype instead of hangouts

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

#120

Post by i336_ »

jrockway wrote: post #64
nickcw wrote: post #20

How about a Chromebook? Cheap, keeps itself up to date, fully cloud based. It wouldn't tick the Lightroom box but it does the internet based stuff extremely well with low maintenance.

I got my mom a Chromebook. It's the most successful computing experience so far, but I was quite surprised by a few things. She didn't realize that the password to log in to your computer was the sync'd to her Google password. So she would type some random password 5 times, until the Chromebook said "use your Google password to reset your Chromebook password", and would then log in with that. Every single time. Some…

Is it really harder to change the new tab page in Chrome OS anymore? Wow.
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