And you thought they were over ...

[dibl]

The "Browser Wars", that is: http://money.cnn.com/2010/10/06/technology/internet_explorer_market_share/index.htm?hpt=T2

[MoonRise]

I think we've only begun to see a war. I wouldn't be surprised if one of them found a way to sue over something. It'll be interesting to watch.

[toad]

I wouldn't be surprised if one of them found a way to sue over something.

Now that you mention it one has to admit that that is one of the things M$ excels at.

[GreyGeek]

<sarcasm>
How convenient for Microsoft that the article quotes Net Applications claim that IE is still "59.7%" of market share, Net Applications being totally independent of Microsoft or its products, of course.
</sarcasm>

Even more pathetic is a posting by an IE fan who claims:


IE is a pain in the butt.......but part of that is it trying to be more secure. I only use IE when doing banking and such. Otherwise it's Chrome or Firefox.


I'm speechless. He's clueless.

Forget about using IE. DON'T EVEN USE WINDOWS to do online banking. Brian Krebs made that recommendation this week (http://voices.washingtonpost.com/securityfix/2009/10/avoid_windows_malware_bank_on.html).


An investigative series I've been writing about organized cyber crime gangs stealing millions of dollars from small to mid-sized businesses has generated more than a few responses from business owners who were concerned about how best to protect themselves from this type of fraud.

The simplest, most cost-effective answer I know of? Don't use Microsoft Windows when accessing your bank account online.

I do not offer this recommendation lightly (and at the end of this column you'll find a link to another column wherein I explain an easy-to-use alternative). But I have interviewed dozens of victim companies that lost anywhere from $10,000 to $500,000 dollars because of a single malware infection. I have heard stories worthy of a screenplay about the myriad ways cyber crooks are evading nearly every security obstacle the banks put in their way.

But regardless of the methods used by the bank or the crooks, all of the attacks shared a single, undeniable common denominator: They succeeded because the bad guys were able to plant malicious software that gave them complete control over the victim's Windows computer.


His recommendation? It is here (http://voices.washingtonpost.com/securityfix/2009/10/e-banking_on_a_locked_down_non.html). It is an Ubuntu LiveCD, and he includes easy to follow instructions on how create one.

[Adrian]

In general people who count in IT don't use IE by their own will.

[verndog]

Even more pathetic is a posting by an IE fan who claims:


IE is a pain in the butt.......but part of that is it trying to be more secure. I only use IE when doing banking and such. Otherwise it's Chrome or Firefox.


I'm speechless. He's clueless.

On first blush this does appear to be an oxymoron, but my online banking requires IE only. I found a way around it though, using of all things Opera. All the others except IE kept giving me , "you need third party program, see your admin..."

When calling the online bank they said that they only support IE. I wonder what servers were donated to them :)

[The Liquidator]

My bank, NatWest, seems to be rather more enlightened. Even the firefox 4 beta works with it.

It won't work with Konqueror though, unless I change the browser identification. I assume you have done that to see if your bank will run with FF?

[toad]

Hm, interesting. I've got to use Opera for my Royal Bank of Scotland account as FF doesn't work. Never thought of changing FFs identity...

[Ole Juul]

I remember the month that Arachne made it to about number 6 or something like that. Hehe. Really, I don't think the browser wars are going to stop any time soon. The thing about browsers is that it is essentially an OS to many users. The difference between the browser and the underlying OS is that it is much easier to change browser. Still, for some strange reason, people tend to stick with one for a long time.

[toad]

I'd opt for rekonq if it had a decent number of add-ons...

[Detonate]

If my bank required IE, I would change banks. I currently have accounts at two banks which I manage online. Both are friendly to both chromium and FF on Ubuntu.

[The Liquidator]

Hm, interesting. I've got to use Opera for my Royal Bank of Scotland account as FF doesn't work. Never thought of changing FFs identity...


That surprises me, given that Natwest and RBS are the same bank and, so far as I can tell the sites are identical, apart from branding.

http://www.rbs.co.uk/personal/online-banking/g1/why-bank-online.ashx#tabs=section4

suggests it should work - it's exactly the same as Natwest which gives me no probs.

You don't have noscript installed by any chance do you? I do know that it will stop you logging in, or at least keying in your user name and password.

[toad]

Christ on a bike! It works! My info was about two years old and I haven't tried FF since. I've always had opera just for banking - made me feel kind of even more secure, my bank had its own browser :)

Thanks for passing the light, Liquidator ;)

[The Liquidator]

Excellent ! I can confirm that Chrome works as well.

What an enlightened bank we have, now if only they did interest-free loans ;)

[dibl]

I've been a happy user of chromium-browser for some months now, on both Debian and Kubuntu. Prior to that I was a FF devotee for 7 or 8 years, but chrome seems substantially less resource-hungry. Java, flash, and the few plugins that I use all seem to work flawlessly. The only bug I know of has to do with opening AOL e-mail messages -- it always does a "double" and opens the message twice. I can live with it.

[toad]

Let's see, I use the following add-ons for FF:

LastPass (password generator/manager/autofiller)
CopyPlainText (convenient for work)
DownloadHelper (nice for downloading youtube content)
FirfoxSync (keeps my bookmarks synchronized across boxes)
FireGestures (wouldn't know what to do without mouse gestures!)
FlashGot (integrates KGet)
MultipleTabHandler (advanced tab management)
NoScript (java buster)
NoSquint (I'm going blind!)
PlasmaNotify (plasma desktop integration)
AdBlock (I am no fan of ads)

I suppose I could do without some of those, but I think dibl put it succinctly:


I've been a happy user of ...

But IE??? Okay, IE 8 introduced the marvellous innovation of tabs - fantastic and only four years of so behind its competitors. IE9 can do html5 - excellent, the sooner flash is gone, the better afaic, but apart from that they don't even run on Linux, do they? Some poor sods have to use them at work and I don't envy them...

[GreyGeek]

...It works! My info was about two years old and I haven't tried FF since. I've always had opera just for banking - made me feel kind of even more secure, my bank had its own browser :)
....


FF has the "Private browsing" feature.

Also, apparmor adds to Internet browsing security. The man gives the details, as does this URL (https://help.ubuntu.com/community/AppArmor).

sudo apparmor_status

will show what condition your apparmor is in. One note: I found that
sudo aa-enforce /etc/apparmor.d/usr.bin.firefox
the oft repeated command to put firefox into the enforcement mode, does not work. One has to

sudo su -
aa-enforce /etc/apparmor.d/usr.bin.firefox

instead. It would be nice if apparmor control was behind an icon in System Settings. Another project, eh Snowhog? ;D

[kyonides]

My bank lets me use FF as normal but I haven't try it on Opera or Konqueror or Rekonq or Chromium or Arora, yet.

[Yuri sss]

My bank works just fine with Firefox. Have tried it with Opera just for fun, and that also works fine.
Seriously, if some stupid bank would try to force me to use that IE junk, I would definitely change banks!

[verndog]

My bank works just fine with Firefox. Have tried it with Opera just for fun, and that also works fine.
Seriously, if some stupid bank would try to force me to use that IE junk, I would definitely change banks!
I thought of doing just that, but I have to much invested - time based sensitive investments, that its not viable right now. Besides I found using Opera to work well with Linux.

I was going to call them back and suggest telling any other Linux users to use Opera, but had second thoughts...what if who's in charge decided to block Opera. At any rate, their investment bankers and not IT. Even the IT guy is really not IT, hence his statement, Linux won't work period?! As soon as they heard Linux, it was a deer in the headlights, a pregnant silence ensued.
At that point I knew they either couldn't or wouldn't help. In talking with the IT department, I figured it was the former.