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For Thanksgiving, give your parents a treat: upgrade their browser

arstechnica.com

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Re: For Thanksgiving, give your parents a treat: upgrade their browser

#61

Post by code_duck »

charleso wrote: post #17

"Well, everything worked fine until you installed that [Chrome | Firefox | Opera] thing on my computer." Doing free tech support for non-technical people is a wonderful thought, but it can also provide a harsh lesson in the dangers of unlimited liability for open-ended, no-fee, no-contract work.

I don't have a problem with unlimited liability to do work for my parents...

Anyway, I installed Linux on my mother's system over Win XP years back and it couldn't have gone better. She has been doing great with Ubuntu for 2 years now. The spyware, failed updates and odd networking failures I was summoned to her house to fix frequently went away entirely, so thankfully it was the opposite of your warning. I guess the lesson there is to only provide the best technology, that you trust. Linux is pretty rock solid for home users today, especially people like my mother who primarily use a browser.

Re: For Thanksgiving, give your parents a treat: upgrade their browser

#62

Post by kmfrk »

lparry wrote: post #59
kmfrk wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I stalled the laptop purchasing decision for my mom and grandmother and ended up letting other family members get my grandmother a laptop (Windows), and I let my mom get talked into buying a Mac by some friends and family members and abdicated all tech support responsibility by arguing that I only knew how to use Windows. It worked; all blame is shifted away from me (as it should be) to the electric contraptions and…

I went the opposite way and dumped windows and started telling people I had no idea how it worked anymore (Vista was a blessing, moving everything around into new places :P) which reduced my tech support to pretty much nothing. Now whenever a novice asks for advice on what computer they should buy, I point them towards a Mac. For the most part, people just dont have problems; but when they do I tell them to go in to…

Outside of major countries, you will not, for the time being, find any Apple stores (Stores?), unfortunately.

Instead, you get certified premium sellers or something nebulous to that extent whose only relation to Apple is that they sell Apple products; they are basically normal retail stores with some kind of accreditation from Apple, whatever that entails.

I assume Apple will expand globally eventually, but the niceties of the Apple store are a privilege, not a guarantee. :)

Re: For Thanksgiving, give your parents a treat: upgrade their browser

#64

Post by brown9-2 »

jgroome wrote: post #50

I hope nobody minds but I'd like to share what happened to me recently: My father called me a few months ago to ask if I could go on our bank's online banking site and tell him if I noticed anything unusual. At the time, HSBC's online banking had the following flow: Enter your user ID as the first step, enter your DOB as the second, and finally enter three specified digits from your 6-figure security PIN. It all seem…

Just changing browsers here doesn't really solve the problem. Can't the Trojan target chrome as well?

Re: For Thanksgiving, give your parents a treat: upgrade their browser

#65

Post by algoshift »

If you install Chrome on your parent's computer and make it the default browser you are making a serious mistake:

All of their logins and passwords are now available in plain text with a few button clicks. If they ever ask someone else for help or take the computer to a store their entire lives can be up-ended in an instant.

I use Chrome almost exclusively. I can deal with this issue. My guess is that 99% of the public has no clue.

I don't understand why Google refuses to fix this.

Re: For Thanksgiving, give your parents a treat: upgrade their browser

#66

Post by icebraining »

zobzu wrote: post #47
SonicSoul wrote: post #23

everything has been just toasty since i got them off IE.. 6 years ago..

yeah, precisely newer IEs are ok. Chrome is ok. Firefox is ok. Opera is ok. this is an issue that most have solved very long ago, and the rest? well they don't read hacker news or ars anyway.

newer IEs are ok

Not on XP, they're not.

Re: For Thanksgiving, give your parents a treat: upgrade their browser

#67

Post by algoshift »

Every visit:

1- Bring the system drive you cloned last year after doing a clean install

2- Swap system drives

3- Data is on separate drive, no issues there

4- Install updates/upgrades as needed

5- Create new system drive image

6- Clone to the old drive

7- Swap system drives again so you always keep the drive with the least run time as backup

8- Create and save new data drive image if desired

10- Ensure that user account has no administrative privileges

11- Let them know that some of the cheese moved, for the better.

Do this on an yearly basis.

It's easy.

Everyone will get used to it.

You'll sleep well at night.

Re: For Thanksgiving, give your parents a treat: upgrade their browser

#68

Post by swah »

jgroome wrote: post #50

I hope nobody minds but I'd like to share what happened to me recently: My father called me a few months ago to ask if I could go on our bank's online banking site and tell him if I noticed anything unusual. At the time, HSBC's online banking had the following flow: Enter your user ID as the first step, enter your DOB as the second, and finally enter three specified digits from your 6-figure security PIN. It all seem…

My parents would have typed the number...

Re: For Thanksgiving, give your parents a treat: upgrade their browser

#69

Post by damncabbage »

Tichy wrote: post #51
damncabbage wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

After, you know, asking.

You mean there could be people who actually want the toolbars?

I know someone who likes the Yahoo! toolbar. (Or "liked", I guess. I don't know if it's around anymore.)

Re: For Thanksgiving, give your parents a treat: upgrade their browser

#70

Post by ams6110 »

jgroome wrote: post #50

I hope nobody minds but I'd like to share what happened to me recently: My father called me a few months ago to ask if I could go on our bank's online banking site and tell him if I noticed anything unusual. At the time, HSBC's online banking had the following flow: Enter your user ID as the first step, enter your DOB as the second, and finally enter three specified digits from your 6-figure security PIN. It all seem…

Highlights another reason to use small, local banks or credit unions instead of the big nationals. The big banks are targets for all kinds of phishing and trojan attacks.
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