This might be less popular but DuckDuckGo, depending on age and tech literacy. My 71 y/o aunt keeps downloading things and getting scammed from ads so I figured it would be the safest to set her up on because it’s the least customizable and poses the least risk.
your parents listen to you? you’re ahead of me already lol
Firefox and Startpage.
I can second that
Microsoft Edge
And I know /c/privacy is going to get an aneurysm, but go into the edge settings and turn on all the “let Microsoft spy on you to keep you safe” settings.
Microsoft website whitelist? Yes please.
Block untrusted downloads? Surely.
Send a copy of an unknown file to Microsoft if it looks suspicious? Don’t mind if I do.
User Account Control? Maximum paranoia please.
For old people you want Google/Microsoft/Apple with their fingers so far into the computer that it starts killing off spyware to maintain its advantage.
Obviously toss in Factory uBlock origin. And pay for ad free on their favorite websites, they changed your diaper for crikes sake.
This.
People here give some good advices for privacy focused individuals, but that is not the answer to the question being asked. Those people need stuff that just works and protects them - perhaps at the expense of maximum privacy, but who cares? They don’t (unless the know what they are doing in which case they don’t need the advice).
The default one on the OS, with chrome also installed, both with uBlock origin. Keep it simple.
Getting uBlock Origin to work with Chrome requires a workaround, and that is not scheduled remain available long-term.
It seems to work in Edge, believe it or not.
Including Edge for Android, which puts it in a compelling position for certain use cases.
This is the golden answer.
Anything that strays from the defaults (especially in windows) risks getting reset during a major automatic update, and now you’re getting support calls because “the internet doesn’t work right anymore”.
Netscape.
Browser doesn’t really matter much. If one isn’t using dev tools or many addons, just pick something FOSS and call it good. I love Kagi for search but candidly for non-tech people, just DDG is simple and pretty good with both results and privacy.
Pick something FOSS
That’s a very short list.
If your native language isn’t English (or even if you’re outside the US) I wouldn’t recommend DDG for older people. They’ll want to search in their language and most searches will be about local stuff and DDG sucks in that area. It’s my main search engine and I constantly play with the country toggle but if I want something actually local I usually end up switching to Google for this search. Just make sure to install an adblock so you avoid the “Ad” results.
librewolf
You would have to change a few settings, making the resolution default to full screen and I’m torn on weather to leave “delete cookies on close”. It’ll force them to remember their password
sor they’ll have a million post-its, which would be fine until cousin Eddy needs a drug refill or Aunt Karen decides to take over the credit card account.Getting someone to use a password manager is not so easy, and I really don’t trust any of the cloud solutions to not screw it up - even a simple UI update bacomes a problem.
There’s also some old asshole who will say something like “You get that liberal furry shit off my computer”
Personally, I installed the Brave browser for my parents, and the reason for this is that Google Chrome blocked ads very slowly, while Brave blocked everything very quickly. The Startpage search engine seems to be fine, except that important tabs are closed, of which there were 50 open, but that’s a technical issue.😆
Doesn’t really matter. The true work lies in how you configure it. You can make the computer automatically open the browser and multiple tabs on startup. Move the tabs to the sidebar, so they have all the websites they want neatly organized in a list on the left side of the screen.
DuckDuckGo has a feature called bangs that redirects your searches to other search engines depending of which bang you use.
Zen, can’t go back to workspaces working like logging in and out.
How old is old? Recommendations for 85+ is different then if your in hs and asking about your 40 year old father…
Search engine, Kagi for parents. You can customize it to just kid friendly results for them so they never see all of the easily manipulative links out there on nearly every other search engine. Similar to the OG Google experience of the early 2000s, but way more relevant and way more helpful as a service to find anything/everything of child curiosity that’s child appropriate.
