My grandma uses it for Internet shopping, email via Mail app, and banking via an app. She no longer has a computer. The security model is much better for her.
Frankly your "grandmother" is better off not doing this anyway.
She needs the anti-phishing filter, the anti-malicious app & URL filter, and will want useful features like Cortana, predictive search, page compatibility modes, allowing websites/apps to ask for her location (e.g. Google Maps), and her files to be backed up when her computer fails.
You can argue if certain things help your "grandmother" (e.g. telemetry, advertiser IDs, etc) but this seems like to throws the baby out with the bathwater.
PS - Windows 10's defaults could be better. But this takes it to the other extreme, disabling legitimately useful functionality (in particular security focused functionality).
Some background: My mom is 78, lives alone, and is very bad at technology. She has difficulty using a mouse, lost the password to her chromebook, and cannot remember where she puts the wi-fi password for the home, so currently is disconnected from the internet.
She says she wants a smartphone so that she can stay in touch with the world. I'd like to get her one so that she can keep up with news, write emails, but I want information egress to be as limited as possible (to prevent identity fraud or asset theft). Even if I tell her to never input her email address, I don't want her to click on a link that will download an app, for example.
Are there any non-obvious solutions to this? Otherwise, would IOS or Android be better? (I use Android, but consistency with me is a secondary factor)
Having a family plan for 1Password means I can access my mother's list and help her with some online stuff. And it's not just because she's 83. Some of the services she has to use are actually bad. I'm an old nerd and I was cursing her bank's website; it sucks.
It's more like blocking exploits, I'd say. Which your prototypically clueless Grandma is vulnerable to. So her machine is likely sending spam, or worse.
I'd consider setting up crashplan or some other automatic cloud backup pretty important, unless the grandma only uses it as a web browser (in which case I'd go ChromeOS)
I think this varies. I'm not a grandparent, but am close to 50 years old and have been working in computer technology my entire adult life. I have an Android smartphone (got my first one this year) but have not installed any apps on it. Email, web browser, text messages, calendar, contacts, and maps are all there and I can't really think of anything else useful I'd want it to do.
My mother-in-law on the other hand IS a grandmother and she's constantly using Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and half a dozen other things on her phone. I don't see the point in any of it and don't use any of those things.
Or she doesn't care about computers and just wants to call her friends via Skype in a pandemic. Why would she care about becoming a better computer user?
Yes, your type of grandma exists, but I don't know her.
Pretty good deal for little old granny who only uses the computer her son set up for her to send emails to her grandkids. That's my granny, BTW; it does happen.
What I meant is that malware will do it for grandma or walk her through it.
My mom is one of those millions who answer the phone and let scamsters walk her through setting up logmein and taking over her Windows box.
The only way I helped her was by switching her to Apple where this isn’t possible. Went from me cleaning her cheapo windows laptop up every six months to three years on an iPad with no cleanup.
My grandparents don't even use email. I don't think we should be setting them as the lowest common denominator for security. Some things that are worth doing require a little bit of effort.
But let's do apples to apples here, because you are comparing "military grade" hardware and I'm talking about software, something where component costs are 0 and have 0 cost to duplicate.
But that's really secondary to the point, if something has proven itself in the most strenuous conditions you can feel confident that it will meet your needs. Assuming your needs are in line with the aforementioned conditions, ex. yes, a "military grade" laptop will be bulky, and grandma will not care about that feature, but someone in an auto-shop who needs a laptop to withstand all sorts of punishment might feel the extra bucks are worth the confidence.
My assumption here is you and those with similar views do not view privacy as a requirement for grandma, and I think that is the crux of the argument. Privacy can be its own reward and everyone will determine their own value for it. If grandma's circumstances are that she needs/wants that privacy, then having a battle tested solution that can be counted on is an easy decision to make.
My granny will get a new PC next week, that will be capable of doing all the fancy stuff, movies, music,... So far she has only been emailing and doing some surfing and online banking (her old computer had 32MB of RAM - ouch!).
Any advice for other nice things to show her? Google Earth is a nobrainer, and I will show her YouTube. Other than that? I myself only visit three sites regularly in my daily surfing: news.yc, a friend's community page and a "normal" news page, so I don't have that many ideas for getting entertained on the internet.
My grandma has an android phone and I'm fine with her having a phone that could permit her to sideload an app. Having a phone number at all is a far more serious threat, and I presume you are fine with your grandmother having one even though a scammer could talk her into giving up her bank details or buying dozens of gift cards and reading out the codes.
The solution to the grandmother scenarios is to have a trusted relative that works closely with them, who they trust to copilot or handle completely all business dealings. If that's not possible, then they're at risk whether they have an iphone or android.
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