I need to setup a pc for an elderly person. They need to protect mainly files (pdf, doc, img etc.) and account access (through device compromise).
Chromeos Flex seems the most secure option. I just cannot evaluate how much privacy is lost exactly. With a few tweaks i can reduce some invasions - dns sinkhole, ublock origin lite, harden the settings, using non-google cloud services (proton docs, drive etc).
If i use Chrome browser to access my files in Proton drive/docs will Google have any access to my files?
Are my files safe from Google servers if they are local only. What i do not want is to secure my files from hackers in Chromeos flex and then Google just “scans” them and give the data to advertisers, police, data brokers etc. and thus negating the security benefits (why hack me if you can just buy my data?)
If that’s the use case, then I’d recommend using a proper Linux distribution like Fedora or even Mint to make it super easy to use.
But you should stay away from ChromeOS as it’s not private whatsoever. It is more secure than private but that only works and makes sense for one if they don’t mind using all of Google services too.
Unless this elderly person is familiar with Fedora (or another Linux distro) I think thats the wrong way to go. ChromeOS is secure and easy to use. For this use case that would trump the privacy concerns imo.
Mint is easy to use too, once set up. And no privacy concerns there that ChromeOS has especially when you don’t plan on using any Google services. So might as well use another Linux distribution.
Can’t say i am super familiar with it so ill defer to you on that. I guess it comes down to use case and threat model. From what OP said the use case isn’t very complicated and Mint seemingly fits the threat model better, so maybe an unfamiliar OS isn’t that big of a deal.
I’d argue Mint today is easier to use than Windows if you ask me once it is set up for how one needs to use it if an older person is using it for their basic computing needs.
Om cursory search Chrome OS Flex is an OS on top of an existing Windows/Mac/Linux.
I do not understand why you need to layer more complexity if toy already have a usable OS underneath? I’d say skip this middle man and stick to the underlying OS a d harden it from there.
Silverblue is still not full read-only OS though? Only the root system is read-only, so malware is still possible.
No Google services will be used. Meaning no cloud services. Only local files + the browser to access more private services like Proton email/docs/drive.
Mint could easily be hacked by a targeted attack. The elderly person will be vulnerable because of the lack of knowledge and will open many files while using the computer - files from email specifically.
ChromeOS Flex is not as secure as ChromeOS and not anymore secure than Linux or Windows itself, at this point I agree I would give them Linux, something like Fedora or maybe Mint, depending on the circumstances here.
Impossible you use google service or not chome os is designed around google and you can’t do this…if you want to have google free experience you need to compile chromium os with patches to remove google blobs which is hard.
Windows and linux is as secure as chrome os flex maybe linux and windows are better in some case.
And if you want a better chrome book buy apple mac book which is better… As it provide many hardware level security many of which reverse engineered supports are now landing into mainline by asahi team.
Linux Mint is a life saver for the family IT guy. I install Mint on my grandmother’s laptop 0 crashs in 5 years+ I pretty must only upgrade it when a new version is released.