How to: Noob proof PC

[DaBethum]

Story:

My mother is a lovely woman who unfortunately suffers from MS (hand tremors).  She's also the gullible type (see: Hi I'm from Microsoft we have detected virus on your machine).

It's getting to the point where I'm uninstalling facebook bloatware every month and doing reinstalls of the OS (Win10) every 3-4 months.

 

The question:

What tools do I need (free?) to prevent her from wearing down her machine? 

Currently I have her setup with Webroot, Firefox with AdBlock and Ghostery, a standard windows user with highest UAC.

The primary issue is she's installing dozens if not hundreds of browser addons, mostly unintentionally.

 

I found the following website before posting here, but I've never heard of this site and the grammar isn't the best so I'm not entirely confident in trusting that.

http://www.ilovefreesoftware.com/10/tutorial/how-to-disable-installation-of-add-ons-in-firefox-browser.html

 

Thanks much.

Love the show.

[Razor Blade]

Just chiming in to say that I have a neighbor that is in the same boat... He was hit twice with scammers. One d*** head actually syskey'd his computer. Luckily he doesn't really keep much in the way of important data on his computer. I set him up with premium malwarebytes and specifically instructed him to refuse ANY person asking for access to his computer and not to use his computer while on the phone unless he is speaking to me, or his bank.

 

I've played with the idea of installing Linux Mint onto a thumb drive and have him try that out. It won't stop everything but it is a bit more difficult for him to install things and for scammers to do harm without root access.