Internet 101 for someone over the age of 8.

August 22, 2008 12:52 PM

Internet safety for beginners. Where do I find a simple guide to print out for my techno-phobe father?

My father keeps getting Trojans on his work computer, and I can't seem to figure out what he is doing. I set him up with Firefox and Noscript. The OS and anti-virus are up to date. We use a firewall. I run Spybot whenever I can distract him for a little bit of time. I can't watch over his shoulder all day -- we're supposed to be working, after all!

So I suspect he's just doing some good old fashioned bad browsing. Unfortunately, I am a terrible teacher and I have no patience. Can you direct me to a guide to safe browsing that a 64-year-old computer-phobe would understand?

Serious bonus points if it comes in printer-friendly format. "I can't read it on the screen!" for any text longer than a paragraph is a big complaint around here.

posted by giraffe to computers & internet (8 comments total)

My guess is that attachments and links in spam/phishing email are the main source of trojans/viruses.

Education is good, but if you're looking for a technical aid as well ... the best things you can do will be to make sure he's not using Outlook Express, and that he is using GMail (they have the best virus/spam/fishing filter of any mail provider I've tried).
posted by zippy at 1:09 PM on August 22, 2008

Unfortunately, we're stuck using Outlook at work. It is the 2003 version. My company is painfully cheap at times.
posted by giraffe at 1:12 PM on August 22, 2008

Bite the bullet and dont let me him run as administrator. Create a limited user account for him.

He should only be logging as administrator when he needs to install or update software. Make the background on the admin account bright red to remind him that he's using the admin account.

Running as limited is more or less immunity from all malware. You really need to go out of your way to compromised a limited user.
posted by damn dirty ape at 1:29 PM on August 22, 2008

Are you running an exchange server? Running an exchange server and cheap don't normally go together! If you aren't running exchange there is absolutely no reason (other than silly company policy) he can't be using Thunderbird for email.
posted by COD at 1:33 PM on August 22, 2008

If he's falling for phishing or other scams via email, point him to Snopes.com and walk through a few of the common scam types with him.
posted by LobsterMitten at 2:12 PM on August 22, 2008

Check out the September 2008 issue of Consumer Reports magazine. It's got some short articles about Internet safety which might be helpful to your father.
posted by needled at 3:29 PM on August 22, 2008

I bought Always Use Protection for my daughters. It may be useful for him as well.
posted by megatherium at 6:29 PM on August 22, 2008

megatherium, that sounds perfect!

All these other answers are great, and I would put them to good use if I was allowed to take more liberties with our work computers. The problem at the moment is that I'm going to be out of the office for most of next week, and he's insisting upon using my computer during that time (and I would like it to be usable when I get back).

I would prefer a long-term goal of better, safer computing for him, so I'll definitely go over your advice with my favorite IT guy who thinks I'm the second coming of Christ because I know how to use a computer. Thanks for your help, everyone!
posted by giraffe at 8:04 AM on August 23, 2008