4 replies to this topic

[Rain Terminal]

Hey everyone,

       I've been wondering, my family members are getting a little older and their knowledge of the internet is good for their jobs but not specifically for saftey. I know craigslist has many scams on it and many sites try to steal information and use that information at our own expense. Now to the point. What browser and addons offer optimal security without making it become hard for my family members to control. I'm not looking for TOR or something, just simple and efficient with some security addons.

Thx my homies

[Blair]

Not necessarily a browser, but I find the family controls and reporting in Windows 8 work very well for my kids. Not only is there filtering, but also weekly reporting of activity. It works pretty well with default settings, but you can also limit the hours and set quotas, or even whitelist allowed applications. It works with any browser.

[Rain Terminal]

My family is older than me, should have been more specific. I'm off at school and am worried about my elders, grandmas and grandpas and parents and so on.

[appleoddity]

Hi.  Internet security is a comprehensive approach.  There is no one answer, or one size fits all policy.  In regards to basic computer security there should be a system or policy in place that keeps windows security updates applied and updates to third party products applied such as Java, Flashplayer, Adobe Reader, etc.  Setting automatic updates to ON in windows can take care of the windows updates for the most part.  Then using a program like Ninite or Personal Software Inspector you can schedule updates to third party programs, or put a link or shortcut on the desktop to perform them periodically without worry of also installing toolbars, malware, etc.  Lastly, a basic anti-virus like Security Essentials will protect against 90% of the other junk.  Having MalwareBytes as a supplemental or real-time add-on scanner can help a lot on the adware / spyware / junkware front.  But, again, MalwareBytes is usually something you need to schedule or run periodically.

 

Along the same lines of parental control - the day to day user account should be a limited account.  The Admin account should be password protected, so a password prompt will be given anytime a software installation or change that could mess things up will occur.

 

With these basic rules you're going to stay pretty darn safe.  But, if the user of the computer is not conservative in their habits then there is simply no way to protect a user from themselves.  And that is the biggest issue we all face.  That is why things like an admin password that they DON'T know helps tremendously.  If they trust you and you are available while away then you can setup a program like Logmein, or GoToMyPC to assist them when they need help and you can reserve the Admin password for yourself for when they want to install that latest game that comes with all the toolbars and other carp**.

 

I know none of this answered the question about which browsers and add-ons to use, thats because today most browsers are pretty similar and the playing field is pretty level.  Believe it or not, in modern, objective tests most browsers compare (yes, even IE) in security.  IE11 has actually proven to be more secure in some cases than other commonly touted browsers.  I use Chrome, for its speed and reliability but it has proven to be less secure in some cases.  Recently Google changed Chrome so now only add-ons that are in the store can run.  I'm sure this has made a huge difference.  In regards to add-ons the simple policy of any add-on is a bad add-on is good.  You simply don't need and shouldn't use toolbars or other silly add-ons for whatever reasons EXCEPT for something like flashplayer or Java which are required for some websites. They can only serve to slow things down and reduce reliability.

 

As always, the majority of your protection comes from the above basic policies.  You can install additional protection until you are blue in the face and eek out a lousy .1% more security here or there and still never be completely protected.  The tradeoff is a far slower and less reliable and more annoying computer.  So why even bother.

 

For further reading Google will turn up a lot of well written articles on internet security best practices and primers for the average or new user to help them along their way.

Edited by appleoddity, 06 September 2014 - 01:26 PM.

[8210GUY]

To add to all the above, the BIGGEST lesson to teach them is about Phishing style emails, make sure they know to NEVER click on links in emails, more so if it's reporting to be from an official source, e.g. PayPal or banks etc., some of these can look so real it's very hard to spot them, I almost missed one myself, it looked that real, so make sure they know that if they ever get something about updating their accounts, security breaches etc., they should not touch them, instead forward them to the purposed senders id to the legitimate site, e.g. if from PayPal (purposed to be anyway), forward it to spoof@paypal.co.uk.

 

I just did that myself 30 minutes ago, each original site should have such a department, but you will probably need to search for it, and if they are worried about it tell them to ask the legitimate site about it, or log into the specific account DIRECTLY, do NOT use ANY links supplied, just go to the site the way they normally would, also warn them about the typical millionaire emails, where you have won something (usually lottery's), or have inherited something (long lost relative and the like), the amount of people who fall foul of these things is unbelievable.

 

But unlike the ones already mentioned, these ones are blatant approaches, the others above are more devious, but these ones are easily avoided using common sense, and guidance on how they can seem so real, but not doing as they ask, and the biggest thing to mention is NO genuine "company" will EVER ask you for passwords, or any personal details, so tell them if in doubt wait and ask yourself maybe, as you sound like you are aware of such things, hope it helps.