General advice on your IT installation

In these pages you will find suggestions for solutions to common IT problems.

 


Local and Microsoft Accounts, changing your login and credentials (username, password, PIN)

If I set up a PC for a client I can only provide a "local account". There are many benefits of changing this to a Microsoft Account, and you can find documents explaining how to do this, as well as how to just change your login credentials, in these documents.

Windows Switch to using a Microsoft Account.pdf

Windows Create a Microsoft Account.pdf

Changing your login user name and password.pdf

 

Better Browsers

Most Windows PC's will have Edge and Chrome Browsers. These are fine for most internet browsing, but there are more secure browsers you can use for such activities as online banking or shopping. Here are some suggestions - all are free, you can get them just by clicking on the link.

Firefox: fast, very long established, and natively quite secure (much more than chrome or edge browsers); my default browser.

Brave: a new browser based on Chrome but with better security.

Avast Secure browser: built by AVAST and also based on Chrome, with some good facilities for internet banking etc.

Tor: not the fastest but it provides very high levels of security and anonymity; by default it clears its cookies and history to protect your privacy when you exit so you will need to accept cookies more often. Probably overkill unless you are paranoid.