My Mother's Computer

[Hungry Man]

This is the setup I've thrown onto my mother's computer. Considering that she can't really be trusted to make decisions and she won't like any security software breaking a program I've gone for the more traditional route of an antivirus.

Using MSE.

I've turned everything off in Comodo except for the sandboxing feature, which I have used to sandbox Java. Java on my own setup can be sandboxed as Restricted with no issues, however to be absolutely sure that she doesn't get a headache I've lowered it to Limited.

Updates are silent. UAC is on Max. Chrome updates automatically. Windows updates automatically.

She's been infected before on XP 32bit before so I consider her "high risk" and even though she's fairly good with computers she's still at a "low level" understanding of how infections can occur and therefor at "high risk" for infection (also taking into account her browsing habits.)

It's not the solution I'd want for myself but it's perfect for her.

 

[Deleted member 178]

ummmmm...i will remove CIS, no way i will put it for a beginner specially if almost everything is turned off, i strongly suggest you to put sandboxie for her browsing and use Windows Firewall with Windows Firewall Control; since W7 is already secure enough.

offtopic: my reply remimd me someone, i wonder who...

 

[jamescv7]

You can set also to Limited User Account.

 

[Hungry Man]

Sandboxie is a pay product. I don't pay for 3rd party security. I was given Emsisoft.

Comodo's turned off except for sandboxing Java. If I had it turned on it would be too noisy and decision based to be useful at all. This will protect her from Java exploits without making any noise or breaking anything else.

I also use Windows default Firewall =p Comodo's is off.

You can set also to Limited User Account.

UAC on max is good enough. I don't want to restrict the computer too much because if she runs into an issue it'll be worse than malware.

 

[Deleted member 178]

so you just use Comodo FW for the sandbox?

 

[Hungry Man]

Yup. Everything else is turned off except for execution control checking for buffer overflow and forcing Java into a sandbox.

Every other module is disabled. I let Emsisoft do the rest.

 

[HeffeD]

I'm curious why you're sandboxing Java. Does your mom run a lot of Java apps, or regularly visits a webpage with a Java applet? If she doesn't do either of these, just uninstall Java from her machine. She likely has no use for it.

 

[Hungry Man]

Yes, she uses Java for Sudoku on NYTimes' website.

 

[Ink]

What about any extensions for Chrome?

I would say AdBlock Plus for Chrome and WOT (although WOT in Chrome cannot block sites).

 

[Hungry Man]

She's on my network, which means she's getting her ads blocked by my router. I doubt she'd ever check WOT =p but I considered the BitDefender extension.

She found the behavioral blocker from Emsisoft too loud so I turned it down a bit.

 

[Hungry Man]

Emsisoft was giving her issues by blocking websites that are known to be good and the behavioral blocker was just too loud for her (Really anything would be.)

I personally like EAM but it's not for her.

Removed and replacedby MSE and BitDefender Trafficlight for Chrome

 

[Ramblin]

Emsisoft was giving her issues by blocking websites that are known to be good and the behavioral blocker was just too loud for her (Really anything would be.)

I personally like EAM but it's not for her.

Removed and replacedby MSE and BitDefender Trafficlight for Chrome

I think its a good move to have your mom use MSE instead of Emsisoft.
False positives are easy for most of us but for moms computer, they
could be a killer. Great move.

Bo

 

[Hungry Man]

From my own experience and based on AV-Comparatives MSE has record low FP's. Detection rates for 0days are something like 40% but hopefully that will be enough.

 

[Ramblin]

From my own experience and based on AV-Comparatives MSE has record low FP's. Detection rates for 0days are something like 40% but hopefully that will be enough.

MSE false positives are basically none. Emsisoft as we know is
very aggressive and in the hands of users like our moms can
be harmful, in my opinion.
Its safer for her to use MSE.

Bo

 

[Hungry Man]

Yup. I find most people are in "default-allow" mode so it's best to give them a program that doesn't offer up choices.

 

[Deleted member 178]

i agree with Bo, MSE fit better to your mother.

 

[Ink]

Not to invade your thread, but for my parents computer they have Avast Free and Norton DNS for protection. Simple.

 

[Hungry Man]

Yeah when Chrome gets proper adblocking I'm gonna do Norton DNS.

 

[Ink]

I use Chrome for their computers, since it's bundled with Flash Player. Speaking of Ad-blocking, Chrome's isn't as powerful as Firefox. You get the odd pop-under. :|

I also have KeyScrambler for when they use IE9 for web-based MS Outlook (or w/e it's called).

I'll stop now

 

[Hungry Man]

Keyscrambler isn't a bad ideabut it's pay-only if you want Chrome support and I always put Chrome on newbies computers since it's user friendly and very secure.