Internet safety habits that hold up on an ordinary Tuesday

Internet safety isn't one big decision. It's a stack of small, slightly boring ones: installing updates when your phone asks, knowing which sites you actually typed in, locking the screen on a shared laptop, and thinking twice before a free download.

This section is for the people who end up as the unofficial IT person. The parent setting up a kid's first phone. The church volunteer who runs the donation page. The retiree who wants to video call the grandkids without pop-ups claiming the computer is infected.

We cover safe browsing, software updates, public Wi-Fi, privacy settings, QR codes, and what to do when a screen suddenly tells you to call a support number. Microsoft, Apple and Google don't put phone numbers in their error messages, so a pop-up that does is a scam.

Every guide here follows the same order: what the risk is, how it shows up, how to prevent it, and what to do if it already happened.