BTC Blog: “There are Updates Available”

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“There are Updates Available”

Posted At : December 18, 2008 2:50 PM | Posted By : Alan McQuat

I was just sitting down to check my gmail when it happened. The dreaded update. This one is for Internet Explorer. So liking the fact that I am the only me I duly download the patch and we are good to go. This got me thinking about browsers, their security and why the enterprise has stuck with IE for so long.

Well the browser, as we know it, is a static creature. The internet is ever evolving and browsers based on the web as we knew it 4 years ago need to be updated. Security is at the forefront of this, with Microsoft, Opera and Mozilla offering patches in the last few days for their respective offerings. These updates and patches are due to the reactive stance browsers have to take to keep up with the changes to the internet, both good and bad. They can’t keep you safe until they know what’s out there to get you right?

Google doesn’t agree…

With Chrome they claim to have created a browser for today’s web. They assume that malware and phising will, at some point, compromise your browser and they claim to have created an architecture within Chrome to combat these problems.

This is great, today. But as IE and Firefox were once groundbraking products the web moved on and it will again meaning Chrome, just like everyone else, will have to react. In fact Google has already released security patches for Chrome since its coming out of beta. And just look how quickly Chrome came out of beta: 3 months! Maps was 6 months in beta and at the time that was a lot less high profile. Some believe this may have been a bit rushed and that some more testing should have been completed.

So will a touted more secure browser tempt organisations away from Internet Explorer? Not in the current IT landscape. IE is established in the corporate environment, the main driver for this being the sheer volume of Microsoft products that can be found in the enterprise.

Another more browser specific reason Firefox hasn’t made significant inroads into corporations is the lack of enterprise level support equal to that of IE. The IT function can administer IE centrally, meaning a controlled browser that can be updated across the organisation overnight keeping it as secure as possible. Firefox updates have to be downloaded and installed by individual users, the IT function isn't keen on this and as a user I know how unreliable we can be at doing anything manually...

I recently had some software updated on my work machine which, on startup, would prompt me to back up my data. Just clicking ok would have set off the automatic process that would have done everything for me, I clicked cancel... every time. Guess what, my machine has a problem two weeks later and needs a rebuild - data gone. Good thing I saved it all to SharePoint then isn't it (what was that about Microsoft being ubiquitous in the enterprise?).

Any new browser looking to oust IE from its mantle in the enterprise will have to include the support features that will make it enterprise ready and be compatible/as easy to use as IE with the myriad of Microsoft products in use at the moment.

We have to remember that Chrome is a first release and will surely evolve as the web does, Google are good at that, but they will have to overcome an entrenched application in IE that the IT function in many organisations has heavily bought into with legacy apps that are optimised to run on IE.

I like Chrome, I’ll use it at home with my new 50meg broadband, but at the moment I think that’s were it will stay.