Blogging some regular geek stuff today.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/07/08/orange_and_ie6/

Just read this article on the register on IT techs working for Orange are getting into trouble for using Firefox at work.   Now I understand that you should follow company’s procedures for using software that’s approved, but for a lot of big companies still sticking with using Microsoft’s Internet Explorer 6 (the browser that comes with Windows XP)  really need to start getting upto speed with their security.

Its well known the IE6 is incredibly insecure even with all latest updates and patches on, businesses must start moving on from using dangerously flawed legacy applications.

I went into my bank (Lloyds TSB) before I went away, and my records are being stored on a PC with IE6 with some kind of web based customer relations software.

Word up to Orange and Lloyds TSB and any other business using IE6 to keep my data, start looking at your security procedures.  I am not happy you could be putting me, the customer’s data at risk on such an obsolete poor excuse for a web browser.  If you are not interested, I don’t want to be a customer of you any more.

Firefox really actually should be an easy app to support and use in the work place.  True, some finicky apps will insist on ActiveX plug ins and wont work on anything but IE6, but this can easily be solved with a Firefox extension called IETab which can automatically render certain sites with URL filtering.

The ActiveX system in IE 6 (and 7&8) can let all kinds of uninvited nasties in your machine.  Firefox’s main security advantage is it doesn’t support ActiveX, but is easily scalable and can be customised by add on extensions, these can be locked out by making sure the user doesn’t have Admin rights of course.  Of course, no browser is completely secure but from supporting people in business and at home using Firefox, users generally take to it without much training and generally don’t tend to break their computer’s set up or get security problems really at all, plus you can use it under Mac and Linux as well.