Can't cope with tech

[EmmaEmerald]

Just a rant to see if any others relate
this not AIBU so please don't shout at me.

I had to do a bit of work today - not a normal Saturday but caring for mum took a bit of time this week.

Had trouble with printer, then anti virus software...which requires me to watch videos to fix it...then I looked over the client paperwork again and realised I was so frazzled, I nearly did a bunch of extra stuff I didn't need to do.

part of this is I can't keep up with, or keep track of, tech and the lingo etc etc. I think she is struggling as well and may not even know it, because one of the things she's asked for, I don't think she actually wants.

then I needed to get some statements from online banking for Monday morning. The option to save as PDF was hidden by several other steps.

Handling ordinary life now feels like work as well. It's so frustrating.

I feel like the tech constantly changes.

i now think my computer might be too old to run McAfee anti virus. I tried other companies but Mcafee seems to be the best.

why is it all so boring, so complicated and so expensive? I wonder if it's worth paying someone to tidy up the computer but then I don't want to give my password to a tech to fix it!

any fellow tech haters?

I’m not a tech hater at all but this stuff can be hard at times. If your computer is old that might not be helping. I just wanted to say don’t worry about a computer professional looking at your PC - if they did something they shouldn’t they’d soon be out of a job. You change your PW before you give it to them or unlock it completely, then change it to a new PW when you get the machine back. There’s no security risk.

You're right
but honestly, I don't know where the authentication is if I change my password.

Surely a tech person can get past a single password on a home computer?

Oh OP I totally hear you. It's so draining and boring sometimes, just trying to do the things that should be straight-forward enough but seem to be one obstacle after another.

The other week my DD needed to print something for school, and it was such a pain in the arse with our printer giving some tedious error message which took ages to resolve. I fiddled for ages to sort it out and I'm not even sure how it resolved or what the problem was.

I’m not sure what you mean. If you give the tech your PC to work on he needs access, so you have remove your password and set it to “password” or something and tell him that, so that he can access the files on the PC. When he’s done, you take the PC back home and set the PW to something new. He then no longer has access to the PC or anything on it.

I hope all your logins for internet banking, cloud storage, email etc are not the same as your PC login?!

Thank you for understanding
it often happens that a problem is solved after lots of faff but I don’t know how I sorted it

What I mean is
if I change the password to log in to my computer I’m not even sure which email it goes to
presume it does that for verification

I think I might know but I’m not 100% sure

re leaving it with a tech, I don’t know what they might do, can they get any passwords from my hard drive or whatever

no, I don’t use the same passwords for everything

it’s partly because I’m so paranoid about security that I’m worried about a tech having access to it

when I began working for myself I had a great local tech guy who came to my home and I stood there while he set stuff up

sadly for me, he is retired.

tomorrow I will figure out if I can still use mcafee. But why don’t these things just say “your machine can’t run this because” and then at least you know if it’s fixable. Instead I got “can’t complete scan, here are several things to check, accompanied by how-to videos”.

if I change the password to log in to my computer I’m not even sure which email it goes to presume it does that for verification
No, your password is not sent to an email address

re leaving it with a tech, I don’t know what they might do,
Only what you ask them to! What exactly are you worried they might do? If you have files with sensitive info you could remove them. But a tech won’t read your files., it’s completely unethical

can they get any passwords from my hard drive or whatever
No, unless you’ve written them down in a file which they read. Even then, again it would be highly unethical and to then use these passwords (banking etc) would be a criminal offence - a stupid one as you would know it was him!

Fictional ah, you’re an optimist

i think ethics left the building ages ago.

my dad had some money missing from his account after a tech worked on it

bank refunded him but said he hadn’t done enough to keep it secure

Of course the tech guy was never found again, after helping a few of my parents elderly friends

i know I can go to a proper firm etc but I’ll do battle with it myself for a while

@EmmaEmerald if you have MS Windows 10 or 11 you don't need McAfee, e.g. see here: answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/all/do-i-need-mcafee-firewall-application-if-i-have/167ee043-00d5-4709-a85d-45de91dce774

McAfee have a deal with some pc manufacturers to be pre-installed as a "free trial" on new pcs, which is really annoying. Their messages can be very intrusive and make you think you need to pay to continue the service.

sub I think I’m on Windows 8.1 but not sure, will check tomorrow

Oh and a couple of years ago, I spent ages trying to fix my printer, then later found it wasn't supported anymore. Again, why isn't there a pop up explaining this? Like we're just supposed to know? So annoying.

They honestly can’t get your banking password from your PC if you do all your security things properly, like not putting your passwords in a text file, but I can see why you are worried.

Oh god yes! Tech is bloody miraculous and for a period of time it seemed to make life easier. Then it got too clever for me and now it's often unnecessarily complicated.

I'm not sure I can face the computer today. Argh.