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> I will not be letting my children near discord. This seems to be a hazardous approach to me. My young son recently installed a sketchy browser on his comput
by zelon88 4y ago
> I will not be letting my children near discord.
This seems to be a hazardous approach to me.
My young son recently installed a sketchy browser on his computer while trying to install a mod installer for a game. I check on his computer every so often to make sure he's being safe, and noticed the browser. So I asked him where he got it, because he had obviously been using it and it was set to default. He told me it came with some mod installer he installed. So I told him about the checkboxes on install wizards that sometimes install bundled adware and malware. It was a good conversation and he asked questions about what spyware looks for and what the information they collect could be used for. He is now prepared for when this inevitably happens again. He watched me uninstall the browser and click through all the dark patterns in the uninstall process, and commented on how hard they make it to remove this stuff. I also looked at the website where he got his mod loader and, while I'm never thrilled about proprietary Windows binaries, it looks reputable within the community.
Now I feel pretty confident that my son will be more careful when installing things. If I just arbitrarily put some restrictions on his usage of the computer I'm not really preparing him for anything. I'm just delaying his development of skills that he's going to need later. I could either monitor and guide him now, or he could struggle on his own later. You can shield your kids and leave their curiosity to fester and turn into resentment, or you can use their curiosity to impart your wisdom.