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Help save my parents computer from my father's porn addiction
ravensmuse
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
We're at about four computers that my parents have killed with their browsing habits. From my father loving Big Boobs and MILFS IN HEAT to my mother clicking any popup ad that comes across her way, the computer - always a cheapie, because lord knows they won't listen to me and get something worth a damn - is a quickly dying breed in my house. Thank God I smartened up and got my own laptop.
But I'm sick of being the person that has to play tech support every time the computer starts acting jumpy and they get redirected all over the place. It takes forever and anything I've accomplished ends up kaput within a few weeks. And I'm getting sick of it.
So what I'm looking for is the ultimate in computer anti-viral condoms. The perfect suite of programs, generally free, that will allow me to run something every day or so and keep the computer from shitting itself the moment Firefox is double-clicked. Something that will prevent the daily cries of "god damn it" and "what the fuck is going on with this computer!?" that I hear so very often around here.
I already make them use Firefox (I hid the Internet Explorer icon), I've got AVG and we just grabbed Malware Byte tonight because we discovered that we had an annoying hijacker that was trying to get our information through ebay. What else should I grab? ...short of blocking every porn site I can think of, of course.
But I'm sick of being the person that has to play tech support every time the computer starts acting jumpy and they get redirected all over the place. It takes forever and anything I've accomplished ends up kaput within a few weeks. And I'm getting sick of it.
So what I'm looking for is the ultimate in computer anti-viral condoms. The perfect suite of programs, generally free, that will allow me to run something every day or so and keep the computer from shitting itself the moment Firefox is double-clicked. Something that will prevent the daily cries of "god damn it" and "what the fuck is going on with this computer!?" that I hear so very often around here.
I already make them use Firefox (I hid the Internet Explorer icon), I've got AVG and we just grabbed Malware Byte tonight because we discovered that we had an annoying hijacker that was trying to get our information through ebay. What else should I grab? ...short of blocking every porn site I can think of, of course.
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Maybe tell him he get can big breasted milfs in heat from websites that won't try and steal his credit card. I'm sure you can right? Guys?
2.) Open Sandboxie and change the settings for the default Sandbox. Find the 'Deletion' settings and ensure the sandbox will get deleted every time on exit.
3.) Replace the browser shortcut on the desktop with the new one that Sandboxie will drop. Change the icon, and the title. Make it look like the previous browser.
Done. Now everytime someone opens the browser through that shortcut, the browser will run sandboxed. It should be totally transparent to them, too, so long as they don't actually want to download something. Nothing downloaded can escape the sandbox, and when the browser is closed, everything from that session will be deleted. Including whatever nasty malware crap anyone happens to unfortunately download.
You might want to look into the setup process for 'Quick Recovery' if you see your parents actually wanting to save some legitimate downloaded files.
Then, install Spybot Search & Destroy, (without TeaTimer) and run the Immunization utility. Reboot into Safe Mode. Run full scans with Spybot and MalwareBytes to make sure that there's nothing on there.
If possible, use a ghosting utility to copy everything on the hard drive immediately after doing that. The next time they fuck it up, just overwrite the hard drive with the ghost image.
So long as you take the time when setting up the OS to mimic their Windows installation as close as you can, it shouldn't take long to adapt to it.
Dude, Ubuntu can look and feel almost exactly like Windows and builds such as Moblin give a completely new GUI that is stupid easy to use.
This is true, I have Ubuntu installed on an old pc that is basically only used for web surfing and if you didn't notice all the programs having different names you would think it was just re-skinned windows.
Sandbox sounds intriguing though! As do Ad-Blocker and Spyware. Any good rec's for registry cleaners?
Thanks guys!
This was going to be my suggestion. Just create an image of a fresh install, and every time they screw something up, just reimage the computer. You would need to find a method of saving new files that they need to keep, of course.
+ABP and Spybot/Malware Bytes should take care of things.
its almost like the reverse situation when a parent has to explain where babies come from to their kid.
Deep Freeze is mighty awesome for keeping a computer clean if the people using it don't want to install anything new often. It basically creates an image of the system, and than on every re-boot of the computer just goes back to that image, while still letting you download files to a "thawed" partition or drive, so even if they download every virus and malware program on the web it can't stay installed more than a day or so. It's not free, but I think the $50 or so is cheaper than the metal anguish of constantly fixing a computer
Hopefully after the first few times or after they lose something important they'll realize that they need to change how they use the computer, not expect you to just magically fix everything.
It's much easier to just lock down their system like you would for a ten-year-old with Downs Syndrome.
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OS X works well for such people. There are net-tops and netbooks that can be hacked into running it, sounds like a better idea.
Just sayin'.
So any time they fuck something up, a reboot fixes it.
To us, ads on pages are obvious, and not installing/running something potentially dangerous is just common sense.
From my parents point of view, some ads blend very well with the website they're using. They don't know the difference between a real popup telling you SomeSoftware needs updating, and a popover claiming your system is infected with viruses and you need new software. Although both my parents have come a long way, I watched my mom open an attachment from a friend the other day, and double click it without knowing what it was. It wasn't anything dangerous, but her rational was "Kathy always sends me funny things, and she knows a lot about computers, she wouldn't send something that was dangerous." Explaining that Kathy might not know her computer was sending things, was a brand new concept.
It's much much much easier to have a plan in place to make the computers stupid proof. I'm not saying don't bother trying to teach them as well. But some of these concepts are quite beyond them.
This is similar to when I was learning to cook with my mom. She doesn't need recipes and doesn't measure ingredients.
"How much milk are you adding to the flour, Mom?"
"I don't know" <pour> "That much. You know, until it looks right."
Until I had much more experience, those instructions were fairly useless to me, but as simple as tying your shoes to her.
When you do tech support for people, especially family, they need to learn to accept your judgement. You know more about computers than they do, why does their opinion even matter?
1. SpywareBlaster: Enable All Protection
2. Spybot Search & Destroy: enable both TeaTimer and Immunization
3. Ad-Aware: enable Ad-Aware Live!
4. Avira AntiVir
As long as you take a few minutes to keep these updated every week or so, most major problems should be avoided. Just train your parents to defer to the judgment of these programs when they pop up with warnings. Unfortunately this combination doesn't get everything, but nothing will because like I said, it's a behavioral issue more than anything else.
If they're only using the computer for web browsing using Firefox, it won't matter to them, since Firefox looks and acts the same on both Windows and Linux.
And if you're really that stubborn about not installing it, go buy a $20 thumbdrive and install it to that. Change the boot order on your computer so it boots from USB, and presto chango, you've got Linux on a stick that your parents can plug in whenever they want to use the computer. This would also leave their Windows installation intact, so they would still have whatever important files/images/programs they feel are important.
No matter what you do, tell them that if they are going to continually disregard your warnings about safe internet browsing (don't download "free cursors", quit looking at seedy porn, etc), you're going to start charging them to clean their system out. Find out what geeksquad charges by the hour and then give them a 10% "family discount". What reason do they have to change their browsing habits if you're always there to swoop in and fix their machine?
On a side note, you said that your parents have "killed" four computers with their browsing habits, but that doesn't make sense. You know that adware and viruses don't destroy hardware, right? Unless I'm missing something, these computers that have been "killed" should be fine after a reformat and OS install.
Seriously though, thumbdrive, Ubuntu, Firefox, problem solved.
Lets face it, IE and Firefox are the most common points of attack.
Pick up Safari and Opera. Safari is a great idea if you want to transition them to Mac. It'll take time, but if they get used to it, it'll save you a headache.
Otherwise I'd look into something like deepfreze, goback, or ghost. (Use google)
Safari and Opera are just as vulnerable as Firefox to most attacks these days. IE remains exceptionally exploitable than the others for some reason, even in its latest iteration.
Most attacks are browser independent, and leverage javascript to launch. It doesn't matter what you're using.
Additionally, this is why there's no such thing as 'safe browsing' anymore. Javascript exploits embedded in flash ads are becoming a primary vector of attack - Meaning that your trusted websites are becoming points of vulnerability. So, something like Noscript for Firefox or some flavor of Scriptblocking on Opera/Safari are more important for security.
Edit: Seriously, though, the deepfreeze/Limited User/sandboxing options are what should be employed here. Those will minimize the headache for the OP.
One related question: people recommended Spybot, one with, and one without, TeaTimer. Any explicit feelings why? I'm installing Spybot now, but I want to know why you feel that way.
I'm voting for this option.
Or maybe you can have a nice sitdown with your dad and explain what links are viruses and which aren't, what TOS to agree to (Answer: none) and the wonderful world of 'torrent!
Which will totally not be awkward.
And the reason I suggest Firefox over Opera, IE, Safari, or Chrome is because of AdBlock Plus. It will kill 98% of the potential vectors for attack, in that it won't even let those ads show up on the computer.
I'm with Thanatos on this one. Avoid Teatimer and pick up AdBlock. In my opinion, Spybot is only really useful as a manually run application for the 'immunization' method - but unless you're going to teach your parents how to use, and they do so correctly on a weekly basis (or you find some way to automate it), it's not worth it. Malwarebytes Antimalware is a better program in every regard, though you need to pay for the 'on-access' protection.
Also: If you wind up using Sandboxie, another thing you ought to set - Go into the Sandbox settings and ensure that the 'drop rights' option is selected. This will make it so anything running in the Sandbox has limited privileges. If you aren't feeling up to the task of making a new, limited user account for your parents, this will ensure that in the Sandbox can exploit the admin.
SteadyState, which basically (can) put the whole computer in a sandbox.
Otherwise, if he's anything like my dad, he'll get easily frustrated if he's encountering something new when he has no idea what the hell it is.
Installed Spybot minus Teatimer and Adblocker and Noscript, have Spybot, AVG and Malware running in safe mode atm. Will look into Sandboxie; only problem is, besides browsing my Dad is an amateur photographer. Will Sandboxie fuck with him when he puts new photos on the computer or futzes around with Picasa?
Thanks for all of the help guys!
You're going to have to make a judgment call as to where the best place to set your parents up on that spectrum is going to be.