this post was submitted on 06 Jan 2025
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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.

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[–] Proprietary_Blend@lemmy.world 19 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Make a document with all of the passwords and save it to her desktop. Print it, too, and leave it in a drawer.

[–] AbouBenAdhem@lemmy.world 11 points 2 days ago (4 children)

OP says part of their problem is that their mom wants to access the passwords from her phone.

[–] undefined@lemmy.hogru.ch 9 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Sounds like mom can’t fuck with inputting passwords at all.

[–] weeeeum@lemmy.world 12 points 2 days ago (8 children)

Yep. She CANNOT copy and paste. I've tried to teach her, long hold and tap copy, hold and tap paste, but it just doesn't click.

[–] fsxylo@sh.itjust.works 9 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

She wants you to be her bitch. If she could she'd make you take a shit for her.

Old people aren't stupid. Somehow they got that old. "Can't" nah, "won't".

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[–] dnick@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 day ago

Only option really is to show her how to reset her password. Sounds like she's already doing it, just tell her that's how you log in, you let it autofill, and if it doesn't work you click forgot password and check your email and that's how passwords work now

[–] safesyrup@feddit.org 17 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Use the firefox browser on iphone? You could make an account that links passwords.

[–] weeeeum@lemmy.world 6 points 2 days ago (2 children)

She always uses the app versions of things. I've tried to teach her how to fetch the synced passwords from the firefox app, but she can't comprehend that.

[–] Meltrax@lemmy.world 6 points 2 days ago

I don't understand this answer. I use Firefox on my phone and I have Bitwarden, my password manager of choice, installed. Autofill works great, it prompts me to unlock Bitwarden with my thumbprint and it's one tap to fill the username and password.

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[–] retrieval4558@mander.xyz 6 points 2 days ago

Apologies if it's been mentioned already, but since most sites require access to the account email to reset the password, could you set up a filter in the email that forwards to you then deletes any email that has like "password reset" "account recovery" or other common variations in the subject?

[–] originalucifer@moist.catsweat.com 15 points 2 days ago (1 children)

so part of your room and board is tech support services? sounds fair.

[–] weeeeum@lemmy.world 14 points 2 days ago (2 children)

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.

[–] Kache@lemm.ee 7 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

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

[–] GissaMittJobb@lemmy.ml 4 points 2 days ago (1 children)

This doesn't sound like a healthy living arrangement, my friend.

[–] weeeeum@lemmy.world 3 points 2 days ago (1 children)

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.

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[–] Brkdncr@lemmy.world 11 points 2 days ago

Take the phone and “work” on it for a few hours, hand it back still not working.

“I don’t know, we tried this before and just can’t get it to work again.”

[–] SmoothLiquidation@lemmy.world 12 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I have my 80+ year old mom using Bitwarden. She has some issues creating new logins but for the most part it is working great on her desktop and her iPhone.

I have her pointed at my own Vaultwarden server and I know her master password if I really need to get in.

[–] smiletolerantly@awful.systems 3 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Yeah. Everytime I'm for a visit, I have to show my mom again how to copy/paste things, access files on her USB drive, where to click to do an update,...

But she loves Bitwarden. Has been app consistent in using random passwords for logins, both on desktop and mobile.

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[–] Tehhund@lemmy.world 12 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

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.

[–] RedWeasel@lemmy.world 12 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Did you set Firefox as the default iPhone password manager?

[–] weeeeum@lemmy.world 6 points 2 days ago (1 children)

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.

[–] RedWeasel@lemmy.world 7 points 2 days ago

Yeah. Go into the system settings app, Autofill and Passwords. Select only the "AUTOFILL FROM" for Firefox.

[–] neon_nova@lemmy.dbzer0.com 8 points 2 days ago

Maybe just tell your mom that since she had changed her password, there is a 30 minutes delay before she can login.

Maybe if there are consequences things will change?

[–] andrewta@lemmy.world 6 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (3 children)

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.

[–] zqps@sh.itjust.works 6 points 2 days ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (2 children)

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.

[–] intensely_human@lemm.ee 3 points 2 days ago

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.

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[–] HurlingDurling@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago

Show her it works, set boundaries, and enforce them. She cannot use you as a crutch for her inability.

If all else fails, fix it one last time, and tell her she needs to go to best buy (or whatever tech store offers tech support) for the next time and when she asks for you to fix it, just stand your ground and make her pay for someone else to deal with her shit.

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

[–] HelixDab2@lemm.ee 1 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

What about using OneKey so that she mostly needs to worry about remembering a PIN? It looks like you can set it up to automatically open your password manager. Might also need to synch her browsers.

As an added bonus, she would have to hold on to the key without losing it, because if she lost it, she's effectively locked out of accounts forever.

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