I’ve become the tech guy, and family are extremely entitled to my services. My mom especially. BTW I can’t cut her out, because I still live with her and she EXPECTS me to fix anything computer related. She won’t take no for an answer.
I’ve tried to keep track of her passwords with a password manager, I’ve spent literally 8 hours in a single day filling out captchas and replacing passwords, and I’ve spent even more time trying to teach my mom how to use the manager.
She CAN’T learn it, and always makes a new password, which she doesnt keep track of and expects me to fix it. What the hell do it do? She uses firefox, with auto refill on, but it doesn’t autofill on her iphone.
so part of your room and board is tech support services? sounds fair.
Well I also cook everything, grocery shop and fix everything (basic electrical, plumbing, woodworking, installations, etc). It’s not even the IT gripe, it’s that she ALWAYS resets her password, doesn’t keep it, and expects me to fix it. Its that she breaks it, and makes me fix it.
Then tell her the only way to log in is via email magic login links?
Edit wait that won’t work, some services send “password reset links” that don’t log you in
This doesn’t sound like a healthy living arrangement, my friend.
I live I a place with crazy high rents and my only other option would be homelessness. Im still in training/education, and if I had to stop, id never be able to get better paying job and I’d be a wageslave the rest of my life.
Honestly we are relatively upperclass, and after some financial lessons I realize its so fucking expensive to be poor.
I hope circumstance treats you better soon, best of luck
Part of the problem is a lot of programs that people who understand tech think is simple or obvious is actually stupidly wrote and confusing and illogically set up.
Older people rely on logic. And most interfaces are the opposite of logical.
Younger people have this idea of "press a bunch of buttons and once you see how it works, then memorize the steps ".
I’m going to guess that she has said something to the effect of “why is this so complicated”?
The only issue I take is that she won’t keep track of the new password that she creates. That to me is laziness.
Older people rely on logic. And most interfaces are the opposite of logical.
Younger people have this idea of "press a bunch of buttons and once you see how it works, then memorize the steps ".
That’s the exact opposite of my experience.
I tried to explain Windows logically to the seniors in my family. This is a window. This is the taskbar, it shows your open windows. This is a folder, it contains your documents.
Every time we would start over with these abstractions which are supposed to make logical sense, the very foundation of Windows’ early success with casual users. None of it ever stuck with them.
They would instead write down every minor step to achieve a specific goal in a specific way, so they could basically control Windows without paying any attention to context presented on the screen. That’s the only thing that worked for them.
that’s roughly what I experience too. It’s like if they would see a colorful pane of glass, but could not make a distinction between the “boxes” on the screen
That’s the one thing old people just don’t do: they won’t read what’s presented on the screen.
I think it comes from growing up before GUIs, so they think of an interface as a set of buttons on a console. There was very little reason to read an interface back when they were all physical; you either knew what each button did or you didn’t and you only had to memorize it once.
Like, the controls of a T-38 tank are always the same. The controls of a ‘57 Chevy are always the same.
Once GUIs came into play, people started interacting with orders of magnitude more control interfaces, so the concept of “there is no manual; the interface is self-documenting” came into existence.
Now you’re supposed to learn the interface and use it on the first encounter, which means reading what the interface is saying.
I dont feel like government forms and taxes are any more intuitive.
on the contrary
I had a stepbrother who killed the internet for 2 weeks to make sure that it help came only outside of our family.
Tip I can give, give her multiple options and say this is the best you can do. Even though you might know better options, letting someone pick it themselves gives them some ownership of it at least
This isn’t great, but it’s what I ended up resorting to for my mom who refused to use any service, browser setting, or saved file:
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Make a “master” password with upper-case characters and digits (e.g., M45T3R). Memorize it or write it down.
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Interleave the characters with those of the domain the password is for (e.g., for google.com: gMo4o5gTl3eR). She can type the master password first, then put the cursor at the start and type each letter of the domain name hitting the right arrow after each letter.
As long as she remembered the master password, she could reconstruct the others on the fly. A human could still look at the result and figure out the pattern, but at least it protected her from automated tools.
She can get past the master password, but she can’t comprehend finding the password for the correct service, copying it, and pasting it. I don’t really know why she can’t scroll down the list to find “CVS” and copy the password, but she can’t.
I’m looking for a system that a baby could use.
This scheme does not need a list, and if necessary could be simplified enough, some common part with first three letters of the site:
- For Instagram: my-memorable-password-Ins
- For Facebook: my-memorable-password-Fac
The memorable part could be the initials of a favorite song lyric, or something: nggyunglydIns, nggyunglydFac etc.
But the suggestion of using the Chrome password manager sounds like it will be seamless. I don’t know if it would work on IOS, but on Android it fills passwords in for many apps, not just web pages.
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Did you set Firefox as the default iPhone password manager?
Can you do this? I’ve tried setting other passwords managers as default, but it seems like with apple’s fuckery, they only allow you to use the internal manager.
Yeah. Go into the system settings app, Autofill and Passwords. Select only the “AUTOFILL FROM” for Firefox.
You can use Bitwarden as the native password manager on an iPhone. And that can sync to the desktop version. I have all my passwords in one place. And on the iPhone since it’s the system password manager it works with apps too.
Alternatively, get her a small notebook, write things down and tell her to use that.
I tried using Bitwarden for my mom, but it was too complicated.
I’ve had good luck getting people into using bitwarden and appreciating it. Def recommend trying to get her on it, as long as she can remember her master password to access the rest
doesn’t need to remember the master password if you set up an unlock PIN. Actually I think maybe it’s a bad idea to let them remember the master password, because they may just type it in everywhere expecting it to work…
I forgot about the pin. Mine almost never asks me for mine, it always wants the master password when auto filling, but that’s likely bc of something in my settings.
the pin is a per-device thing, you need to set it up first to use it
I think I just needed to reset it, I recall accidentally hitting No on the prompt after setting the PIN initially and not having a way to go back and choose Yes to unlock with the PIN. Reset the PIN and got to say Yes on that prompt this time
Maybe try a different password manager and see if its interface is easier for her to use? There are lots of options, not all of them FOSS but this might be a time to accept a well-regarded commercial solution. Or, since she has the iPhone, try using their password solution. They integrate that pretty thoroughly in their apps and OS, and I think with this year’s OS releases across the board they have turned it into more of a fully-fledged password manager with its own apps. I know very little about it, but there might be a way to integrate it with Firefox on desktop now.
My wife is like this. I just set her up with Chrome’s password manager despite the fact that I’m a Firefox and Bitwarden user. Works in Chrome, on Android, and on iOS - she doesn’t have to use Chrome on iOS, you just have to install Chrome and set it as the iOS password manager and it still works with all apps and Safari. She doesn’t care if Google has her whole life on file and I’m not paid enough to care for her.
Part of the problem isn’t necessarily you or her, I feel like websites are increasingly hostile toward password managers by coming up with arbitrary rules, weird JavaScript hacks and annoying two page sign-in forms.
I’m a web developer but even I get frustrated with how websites want to hijack input fields and do validation with shithole JavaScript frameworks instead of simpler HTML5 validation (only for frontend obviously, the server should still validate on the backend).
annoying two page sign-in forms
What is up with this?
It’s a thing that makes single sign-on easier and more extensible. If you have a login email matching a server side rule, you get kicked over to a different auth provider (e.g. Okta).
Still drives me absolutely fucking bazonkers though.
You can still just hide the password field upon typing an SSO email address — iirc Atlassian does this.
Yep, that’s exactly right.
They’re all bad, but Firefox is terrible about this. Twice already in January I’ve had to make new passwords to pay bills. I was in my car when i did it and now i have no idea what those new passwords are. I’m so sick of letters, numbers, and special characters! No one is out there attempting to guess my gas company login password - they’re buying it from someone who hacked the gas company.
What does any of that have to do with Firefox?
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It doesn’t. Unless they’re talking about saving their passwords in Firefox, in which case it sounds like they’re not using a Mozilla account and their credentials aren’t synced.
My family used to both say I was the nerd and can and need to fix all their shit, AND anytime anything went wrong it MUST be my fault since I’m the one “tinkering” with and fixing their shit.
This is a minor part of a huge amount of reasons I worked my ass off to get fully independent and no contact with my family anymore.
Ugh I hate whenever something goes wrong the blame is always placed on the last guy who worked on it. If you ever build a PC for someone, you better believe you are gonna be tech support for that thing FOREVER.
I’d understand if you had issues immediately, or days after, but if its been weeks, months or even years? Gtfo. Thats longer than most free warranties.
Would she use one of those little password-keeper books? It’s not as secure as a password manager, but it might help get her self-sufficient.
You could start not knowing how to do things, give slower answers, just give bad customer service. Or ask her if whatever she’s trying to do can wait until she gets home to get computer.
I know the feeling of wanting to help, it’s part of why I became a librarian. I also know the pain of old folks coming in and asking the same questions. I had one lady, really sweet, that would come in and ask for the phone numbers to maybe 3 businesses a day. Like, we’d show her how to look it up, we’d walk her through it on a public terminal, she’d still ask us again the next day. It gets frustrating and you pick your battles.
At least I could go home after a shift and stop being the tech-knower. It doesn’t sound like you get to and that sucks.
at some point, you gotta throw in the towel and let her use one password for everything. not ideal at all, sure, but it’s not the end of the world as long as it’s complex enough.
or get her a notebook, or a note-taking app, and jot down all the passwords for every account (not the generated ones from the password manager; too complex).
if your issues are more of the “help me, now!!” variety and you want to keep her off your back, tell her that you’re busy and can help in ten minutes or an hour or at some scheduled time. if her stuff is urgent, too bad, your work is too. show her that you’re not at her beck and call, and then help her at that scheduled time; you’d be surprised at how fast the problems reside.
Honestly even though she is pretty abusive, she’s told me that I’m the sole beneficiary in he trust. My sisters went no contact and she’s divorced.
With how much money she has, and how easily she gets hacked and scammed, I dont trust using single passwords. She also makes accounts for EVERYTHING. She even had an account for a fucking calculator. With the variety of stuff she makes accounts for, I wouldn’t trust a single password.
i get it. i don’t blame you for maintaining a status quo for the purposes of inheritance. i hope you find a good solution in this thread at least!
She doesn’t have money dude, nobody like this does. You have no way of knowing if she had more debt than assets.
Just use Chrome everywhere, and sync it to Google. There should be chrome for iPhone.
That’s not true. The wealthiest people in the world are abusive as fuck. Is it possible she’s swimming in mountains of debt that outweigh her value? It’s entirely possible. But it certainly isn’t a guarantee
She’s smart enough to have a financial advisor, and honestly they’re the reason she has as much wealth as she does. Other than that she is kind of a corpse. Shell lie in bed for days at a time, her screen time is often around 18-22 hours per day.
Right, but it’s not healthy to rely on getting it. If you do, you have double the job of trying to prevent them from bleeding themselves dry.
Best to think it’s a myth, and then get the chance of a nice surprise later.
What about a password type? Like the password has the same format, but is different for each site? Like if her birthday is May 25 and her favorite dog’s name is Bunny, she can start it with that and then finish it with a differing sentence?
0525BunnyThisIsMyAmazon! 0525BunnyThisIsMyBank!
, et cetera.
It’s not the most secure, but at least it should keep it from being brute forced and give her things she can easily remember. And if there’s a leak and they have to be changed, you can just change the front part.
Use something that has solid iPhone support. Bitwarden has integration with iPhone to replace the built in password manager. That’s what I do. It
Then on desktop, I use the bitwarden plugin for safari, Firefox, and chrome.
It even works for passkeys and syncs them between devices. Even between iPhone and desktop. It intercepts the iPhone passkey manager.
Then it even works for her apps on iPhone.
Seriously, it’s a very seamless, elegant solution.
Set “office hours” and stick to them. She can make a list of things to do. Maybe it needs to be 20 min every evening, or maybe just once or twice a week. My partner has a similar (but more minor) problem, and this has worked both increasing self-help and making the time spent more enjoyable. Though I’m sure it helps that the needy person doesn’t live with us. Good luck
Maybe setup a mozilla account and setup firefox on her phone, i’m pretty sure it would sync.
