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Originally Posted by tony286
Thanks for the answer. she is on the windows 7 firewall. She has admin control the system, should I change that? Also as people get older on a computer I find they get over whelmed and click on everything without reading. I changed her pass and told her to change them all.
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A normal user has NO REASON to be administrator or have those rights on the local machine. Since Windows 2000, it is not recommended that you use an administrator account for daily/normal use. You use it for administrative purposes, then log off and back in as a regular user. This way you are much more protected, simply because what ever nasties you might happen to run accross or click on, they can't get anywhere since you do not have the right to run or install them.
Set her up with a regular user and also setup a MSN account and show her how to request "remote help" or "remote desktop" from you. That way you can come in and remote control her computer.
Also make sure that ALL administrator accounts on the computer has a password on them. It is absolutely crazy to have a internet connected machine with a blank admin password, it's like leaving the front door to the house open and go on vacation. You're asking for it!
Buy her RoboForm or something, don't allow Microsoft Internet Explorer to save passwords. It's not even safe or recommended to ask Firefox to save them for you.
Windows own firewall is a good start, but I would really say get Zonealarm, Norton, F-Secure or just about any other 3rd party software for it. The Windows Defender or Firewall or what ever they call it, is, unfortunately, still more about not disturbing the user and hopelessly after the technology, speed and safety from the others.
Could be argued that "my mom does not visit bad sites". Probably true, I do not think she would visit
www.astalavista.box.sk by herself, but she has friends who sends her chain mails, "funny stuff", adorable pictures of kittens, babies, funny quizzes to fill out and she will gladly click. And then we go again.
1. Make mom a regular user and PASSWORD PROTECT all administrator accounts. Best is to even rename the admin account into something which is not easily reconized as "the boss", "admin", "administrator", "owner" or similar.
2. Get a real firewall up, preferrably with some kind of antivirus combined. And make sure that program also scans her in AND outgoing email.
That should keep her reasonably safe with only little or no extra hassles for her.