What £10 a month actually covers: home PC security

Most home computer support works like an emergency plumber. Nothing gets looked at for three years, a Windows update quietly fails for four months in a row, a fake virus pop-up tricks somebody on a Tuesday evening, and then you pay £90 to £150 for a call-out when the machine will no longer open a browser.

My Home Device Security Plan is £10 a month per Windows PC or laptop, with no set-up fee and no minimum term. It replaces emergency call-outs with a proper initial lock-down, a monthly remote health and security inspection, and up to five remote fixes a month. Here is every line of what that £10 buys, how the privacy rules work, and the things it does not cover.

The initial lock-down, with no set-up fee

Almost every home Windows laptop bought from a high-street shop comes out of the box with the main user running as a full Administrator. That single default is why so many home malware infections succeed: when you click a bad attachment or a rogue installer, it inherits every permission you have.

When a machine joins the plan, the first thing I do is set it up properly so everyday mistakes cannot easily wreck the operating system:

• Account and permission sanity: Checking who has administrator rights and making sure background software cannot install itself silently.
• Windows Defender, firewall and disk protection: Confirming real-time tamper protection, Windows Firewall rules, and drive encryption (BitLocker or Device Encryption where the hardware supports it) are actually enforcing rather than just ticked on a dashboard.
• Browser and DNS protection: Stripping out adware notification permissions—the main source of fake “Your PC is infected” banners—and configuring DNS filtering so known phishing domains fail to load.
• Windows 10 and Windows 11 check: Mainstream support for Windows 10 ended in October 2025. If your PC can move to Windows 11 or needs Extended Security Updates configured safely, I sort that out. If the hardware is genuinely too old to keep secure, I tell you on day one rather than taking £10 a month to pretend otherwise.

A monthly check, rated Green, Amber or Red

Once a month I check the PC remotely and send you a short, plain-English note rated Green, Amber, or Red. Not a twenty-page automated PDF full of CVE numbers—three or four lines you can read over a cup of tea.

Automated tools are terrible at spotting the way Windows actually breaks. As I wrote about a server that reported itself fully patched while running none of it, an update utility will happily report green while a cumulative update has been rolling back at 98% every week for two months.

• Green: Security updates are installed and active, Defender definitions are current, disk health (SMART) is clean, and startup performance is normal.
• Amber: Something needs attention soon—a cumulative update stuck in a retry loop, a C: drive passing 85% capacity, or a backup drive that has not plugged in for a month—along with what I adjusted or need your say-so to change.
• Red: An urgent warning, such as failing SSD sectors or an active security issue, caught before your photos and documents disappear with the drive.

Up to five remote problems fixed each month

The biggest reason people live with a slow laptop, a broken printer, or an annoying pop-up is that calling somebody out feels like starting a taxi meter. You do not want to pay an hourly call-out fee just to ask, “Is this email from my bank real?”

Each covered PC gets up to five remote fixes or checks a month, up to 20 minutes of work each. In practice, 20 minutes of direct engineering time covers almost every normal home PC headache:

1. The “Is this a scam?” check: You see a suspicious warning, an odd Microsoft sign-in prompt, or an invoice you do not recognise. You message me, I inspect it remotely, clear out any rogue browser push notifications, and give you a straight answer.
2. Sudden slowdowns and noisy fans: Finding the runaway background process, bloated startup app, or stuck Windows Search indexer that is pinning your CPU at 100%.
3. Updates and drivers that refuse to install: Clearing corrupt Windows Update caches and fixing audio, Wi-Fi, or printer drivers that vanished after a feature update.
4. Programs that stop opening: Fixing broken Office associations, stuck PDF viewers, or mail clients that suddenly reject your password.
5. Backup verification: Checking that your external drive or cloud sync is actually writing recoverable files—because a backup job that says it succeeded is not the same thing as having your files.

If you hit a problem that will genuinely take longer than 20 minutes, I do not quietly run a clock and bill you afterwards. I tell you what is wrong, quote a fixed price before I carry on, and that problem does not use up one of your five monthly slots.

How £10 a month compares to the alternatives

If you are weighing this up against paying a local shop when something breaks or taking out a warranty plan from a retail chain, here is the honest comparison:

What matters	Ad-hoc repair call-out	Big-brand subscription	My £10/month plan
Cost	£75–£150+ every time something breaks	£15–£25/month (often 12-month contract)	£10/month per PC, £0 set-up
Contract lock-in	None	Usually 12 months minimum	None — cancel any month
Proactive checks	None (waits until it fails)	Automated pop-up scanner	Monthly human inspection + Green/Amber/Red report
Included fixes	Charged per hour or per visit	Tier-1 call centre scripts	Up to 5 remote fixes/month (20 mins each)
Who you deal with	Whoever is on the desk	Different agent every call	Me directly

Privacy: what I read, and what I never touch

Letting an engineer onto a home computer requires clear rules. I built my business security audit to be strictly read-only, and the same respect for boundaries applies on a home PC:

• Never your personal files: The monthly inspection checks system logs, update states, disk health, and security settings. I never open your photos, documents, or personal folders.
• Never your passwords: I will never ask for your banking, email, or account passwords. If a fix needs you signed in somewhere, you type the password yourself.
• Nothing changed without your say-so: Security updates go on automatically. Anything that changes how you use the computer gets explained in plain English first, and waits for your permission.

Four things it does not cover

Just like what my £49 website care plan covers, a £10 plan only works if the boundaries are written down in advance.

1. Broken hardware. Software maintenance cannot mend a cracked laptop screen, a dead battery, a spilled mug of tea, or a motherboard that will no longer power on.

2. Computers too old to secure honestly. If a machine cannot run a supported version of Windows or its drive is already failing on day one, I will tell you straight during the initial check and refund or skip the plan rather than taking £10 a month on a dying box.

3. Home Wi-Fi rewiring and NAS builds. Fixing a laptop that dropped off your Wi-Fi is included. Designing a mesh network for a four-storey house or building a multi-bay NAS from scratch is one-off home tech support, quoted separately.

4. Business compliance computers. This plan is for personal and household Windows PCs. If you have company laptops that need Cyber Essentials evidence or multi-user policy enforcement, look at my Windows Security Audits instead.

Common questions

What if we have two or three laptops in the house?
It is a flat £10 a month per Windows PC or laptop. Two machines is £20 a month; three is £30. Each one gets its own initial lock-down, its own monthly Green/Amber/Red report, and its own five remote fixes a month.

Do unused fixes roll over to next month?
No. The five-problem allowance resets each month so the price stays £10. In practice, once a PC is set up properly and checked every month, most people use one or two slots every few months.

How do I cancel?
Send me an email or a message. There is no minimum term and no notice period—the month you have paid for finishes, and you are not billed again.

See the full £10/month Home Device Security Plan here, or send me a message with how many PCs you have at home and anything they are doing right now that annoys you.