Best Security setup for my Mom

I need a little help of what people think would be the best security setup with windows 7 ? Will be first making sure her account is a limited user of course. I want to protect her from malware/viruses as much as possible. Virus scanner will be running too. What else should I add to the setup please ?

 

adblock + firefox

 

Make sure she understands how to use uac as it will help protect her.

Don't install flash for IE, and even remove the IE shortcut from the desktop, however leave it in the start menu. Too many programs still use IE as a runtime, and if they display ads do you really want them to display flash ads through the IE runtime?

The most recent versions of flash, and firefox will have automatic updaters, however may still require some user interaction. Otherwise don't install flash at all, and just install Google Chrome which comes with it's own version of flash, and also updates automatically.

Keep it simple. Stardard hybrid/User account, windows firewall, resident av scanner, put on maybe mbam for manual scanning, and then pick your browser/flash variation.

Too many websites need flash so it's hard to avoid, but make sure java is not on their system unless you're sure they need it.

Depending on the browser/etc it's usually safe to clear flash storage on exit, but some sites, like some banking sites might use a flash cookie for confirmation. I suggest flash storage is wiped on shutdown every time if you want to not be tracked.

Get people used to logging into services, you can set browsers to never save cookies, and don't let them save all their logins either in the browser. Sure it might be easy, but they will make no effort to remember the login.

 

I'm not going to recommend products because every other person is just going to come here and tell you to use their favourites.

I'll say this though, the best setup (especially for the older generation) is one with minimal interruption. a.k.a. no popups every 5 seconds, no "are you sure you want to load this script" on every webpage, etc.

 

Thank you.

 

One thing I've been using on my mom's computer lately is the Windows Malicious Software Removal Tool. If Windows is up to date you already have the latest version. Just run it once in a while as an on-demand scanner. It has of list of nasties it scans for. It's very thorough but takes a long time if you do a full scan, especially on large drives.