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Comment by epc | Hacker News Reader

Dealing with this with an elderly family member.

We've moved them to all Apple devices. Locked down everything (the account on the Mac is "standard" not Administrator level). Set up a G Suite account with restricted access (cannot install apps, cannot install extensions into Chrome). Use 1Password for passwords, 2FA for all accounts that allow it. Removed Flash early on, removed Java runtime. Turned off auto–update on the Mac and iPhone/iPad.

I initially tried parental controls on the Mac but found it was a nightmare for even their limited use of apps outside of Chrome.

Still after 10+ years of “training” this person to call me for any technical issues I get surprises like yesterday when they wanted to install an “ad blocker that keeps popping up in Chrome”, which was, of course, malware.

Probably will ditch the Mac and switch to a Chromebook later this year.

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> Turned off auto–update on the Mac and iPhone/iPad.

Why? I would have done the opposite.

Not saying it's right, but in general, updates tend to introduce pointless UI changes which are catastrophic for older people who aren't technologically inclined.

Apple itself isn't too bad in this regard, but apps do this all the time.

This. I still keep an aging HP desktop running windows XP up for an 85 year old who only cares to play a specific version of Hoyle card games for DOS. If anything in his experience changed, it would be catastrophic.

You are spot on on UI changes. My octogenarian father called last year telling me his bank account had been hacked. Long story short, his bank had put an interstitial ad for loans showing a vacation beach scene between the login page & the account summary page he was used to. With his eyesight and patience level he didn't notice to scroll down for the "continue to your accounts" link. Ergo, only explanation was that he'd been hacked.

This took way too long to diagnose now that I live hundreds of miles away.

I wish UX designers would slow their roll on things like this in sensitive applications like online banking. There are times for ads and times for when ads should not be present.

Most of the time, it is not UX designers that are the problem here. There aren't UX designers who are like, "yeah let's make a shitty experience where you have to click through for no reason". It's someone on the business side forcing them to do it.

I used to think this, but then I started reading UX industry papers and websites. Now I think that the problem is a combined effort.

I've sadly started recommending the same thing. It seems like every software company hires new UI designers every year, or the existing ones can't resist the urge to change the interface around every release. I wonder how many of them realize how hard their redesigns are on older folks who just took 6 months to learn where everything is on the previous version?

I really wish it was the norm in the software world to offer UI updates and security fixes independently, so we could upgrade the good without having to accept the bad.

> I really wish it was the norm in the software world to offer UI updates and security fixes independently, so we could upgrade the good without having to accept the bad.

Me too. That used to be standard practice, and I think abandoning it was a disastrous move.

I know that combining the two things like this means that I get security updates less often than is desirable, because I delay all of them until I feel I have enough time and energy to deal with any UI/feature/configuration changes.

On Mac, alowing OS Updates doesn't actually enable the download of major releases, only point releases that don;t tend to involve UI changes.

I forgot that auto-update can upgrade the OS. Blocking those updates to prevent UI changes makes sense.

Mostly to avoid what others have responded with. The person I'm supporting is ~1500 miles away for much of the year and I found Apple's update process would randomly disable my remote access setup, in addition to random UI changes. 2-3 times a year I apply updates in person as well as take snapshot backups on a portable drive.

I would suggest using a pi hole on top of this setup.

Great idea, thank you.

Only issue is it will desensitize them to threats when they are not on that network. But if they're only ever on that network, they'll probably be fine.

I would install logmein or some remote access program that helps. Also helps to buy them a router with a cloud stored configuration. I mean that opens up some issues but all in all saves a lot of time.

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