Firefox "too expensive" for the State Dept....

[Solomwi]

I wasn't aware that I was, but he may have had some bright spots in an otherwise dim wit.

Research. It's the anti-drug.

[Sirotnikov]

Imran - how does IE6 make you safer?

[DaShi]

Familiarity.

Also, most businesses are not planning to switch to Windows 7 despite the positive review, instead prefering to remain with XP. The main reason is cost. As Asher said, it's not the cost of the software, but of the transition. This is the major hurdle for nearly all new IT implementation.

[MikeH]

If you were involved in IT of a very large unit, then you would see why it's forbidden.

IT admins can strictly control IE settings on every computer under their control through Windows, remotely. They can enable and disable certain parts of it (eg, proxy use) and set fine-grained security settings via corporate policy.

Firefox does not support this. This is why enterprises are dominated by IE.

It may change if Firefox finally supports the MSI installer, which then lets Windows admins push the app out to all computers to install and hopefully configure as well. But that's only part of the problem, it will still never match the IE fine-tuning possible due to it being a component of Windows.

Other factors: Firefox doesn't support NTLM out of the box. Many, many internal webpages/applications are dependent on the flawed rendering in IE6. It is very expensive to fix those apps up.

Everything Asher says in this post is 100% correct. Got several very large organisations and some medium sized ones as customers who are in this position. We're going to be supporting IE6 for some time yet. Which is annoying. I can only imagine people saying it isn't true haven't worked on web apps for internal use at multiple large organisations.

[Dis]

in the case of my company you can't install your own software.

If I could Civ4 would be going on in a heartbeat.

I'm stuck with internet explorer at work. But IE isn't too bad. It's not like I have to fix the computer if it breaks due to spyware or something.

[Sirotnikov]

Everything Asher says in this post is 100% correct. Got several very large organisations and some medium sized ones as customers who are in this position. We're going to be supporting IE6 for some time yet. Which is annoying. I can only imagine people saying it isn't true haven't worked on web apps for internal use at multiple large organisations.

That deflects the question. Running both / IE tab is a viable solution.

Firefox is not unsupported. It's disallowed.

[Asher]

That deflects the question. Running both / IE tab is a viable solution.

Firefox is not unsupported. It's disallowed.

Because of everything else in what I said.

It's a mix of all those issues.

[loinburger]

The air force's rationale (which AFAIK extended to the entire DoD) was that if everybody's running the same software then it's a helluva lot easier to track defects / intrusions / etc. If my computer gets hacked and I'm running the approved software then the IT schmucks can block ports or patch shizznit or whatever it is they do. If my computer gets hacked and I'm running unapproved software version ??? then the IT schmucks don't know if there's a legitimate threat that warrants a resource expenditure on their part or if there's just me being stupid on my lonesome.

[Tuberski]

My company uses IE6. It was also voted one of the 100 best places to work IT in the US..

ACK!

[chequita guevara]

So what - any company that takes security seriously don't EVER use IE6 level. They may chose to be compatible but it's a pain in the ass, so if they can aviod it they do..

That's not how business works. One of the things Asher is declining to mention is also liability. One company I worked at refused to use open source software, because there was no one to hold responsible if things didn't work. Other than that, Asher is describing the North American business environment quite accurately in my experience (I've worked for multiple Fortune 500 companies).

[Sirotnikov]

I certainly understand why would businesses work that way. They would usually have sensitive info on internet computers.

Assuming state is a tiny bit more professional and has different workstations / virtual environments for secret vs. open internet stuff, it should matter much less.

That's why, I assume, the US intelligence community has no problem with firefox.

That's why my unit was forgivng to people who installed other browsers, even though it was not official policy. Installing things like flash or various media plugins was always a nightmare since it required permits and admin access, which only infosec were supposed to have.

Information Security was severely understaffed and usually recruited idiots who had little understanding of technology. Anybody who knew anything would work on secret projects, so regular unit support was done by incompetent morons.
The result was - nothing was ever approved or allowed, most of the time because they had no ****ing clue about actual threats, beyond reciting policy guidelines that they never understood.

[Sirotnikov]

One company I worked at refused to use open source software, because there was no one to hold responsible if things didn't work.

So true.

And it doesn't even matter if holding someone responsible will fix things. Most usually companies would have extremely slow support and even slower bug-fixing processes.

The point always is, to shift blame, and shift responsibility for making a solution. "We can't fix it. It's 's bug. We reported it and it will be fixed next year".

[BlackCat]

Uh... Imran works for the United States Government (Department of Labor to be exact). We are cognizant of security issues due to personally identifiable information due to investigations into pension and health care plans. We use IE6 (which is a total pain in the ass).

BlackCat also works for a company that have to handle personal informations - we would never use IE6 technology for such - BC thinks that Imran should be a bit worried about the company he works for

[BlackCat]

That's not how business works. One of the things Asher is declining to mention is also liability. One company I worked at refused to use open source software, because there was no one to hold responsible if things didn't work. Other than that, Asher is describing the North American business environment quite accurately in my experience (I've worked for multiple Fortune 500 companies).

True, we have had the same discussion, but it was ten years ago. Back then, I was one of the (dammit, what was it they were called that smashed up maschines back in the 1800 ?) that meant it was better to use Solaris instead of Linux. Well, I was wrong - We have only two servers left with solaris and that is only because workload - rest is pure linux.

I have only one time experienced problems, and that was with a lex/yacc version that ****ed up seriously - problem was solved in a later version and until that, we worked fine with the old version.

[Solomwi]

Luddites, BC?