Troubleshooting Your Own Computer

Giving Your Kid A Laptop? 3 Ways To Help Them Avoid Getting A Virus

by Dora Barrett

Computers are becoming the norm for children to use for many projects. It is even perfectly understandable to bring a laptop to school for taking notes during class. But, when you are ready to give your kid one to use in school and while they are at home, you want them to protect the laptop. Dropping it is a quick way to cause damage or even break it, but another method is getting a virus. Ideally, you want to do all that you can to prevent your child from getting a virus and needing laptop repair services.

Make Use of Child Settings

The first thing that you should do is start using Windows 10, which comes with a slew of features for protecting your child and giving yourself the ability to monitor their laptop usage. It is important to consider their age before blocking just any website to avoid unnecessary censoring. While they are in elementary school, you can block most things that they should not be trying to learn about at such a young age, which includes things like profanity, drugs, alcohol, and dating. It is easier to pick up a virus on one of these websites compared to educational ones, especially those with the .edu extension.

Stay Safe While Browsing

It can be tempting to install one of the many browser add-ons or extensions that claim to protect your child from getting viruses while surfing the web, but they can actually have the opposite effect. It is best to rely on the standard Windows Defender program that you get with Windows 10. The great thing about using Windows 10 is that you do not have to worry about manually installing any updates. On occasion, your child will turn the computer off and it will start downloading and installing them automatically. This will ensure that the program is always kept up-to-date to tackle new or changing viruses.

Teach the Symptoms

As much as you do to protect your kid from getting a virus on their laptop, it may still happen. So, you need to tell them about the symptoms that they can expect to see if they do have a virus. Weird messages, unusually slow performance, or new icons showing up on the desktop are all worthy of an inspection. If there is a problem, you can always take it in to a repair shop to get the virus completely removed.

Following these tips will give you confidence when your child starts using a laptop. To learn more, contact a company like Computer Exchange

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