Do any of you have thoughts on a business case for continued use of Firefox for an individual?
Why? My employer is moving to uninstall all instances of Firefox on company computers for ‘security reasons’ in favor of Edge and Chrome. I would be allowed to keep it if I could make a business case for it. There is no legit reason why I can’t get my work done with another browser, but I am going to push hoping just being a squeaky wheel is good enough. My guess is folks on here will have clearer thinking on this than me. Does anyone out there think my IT dept is making a good decision?
I use Firefox and Firefox based browsers for privacy reasons and because I dislike closed source software and I like to see open source grow. You could argue that at work you are another person which maybe does not need so much privacy. Then when you arrive home you are another person with the freedom to use the software you prefer. I think it will be difficult to argue with your IT staff that Firefox will be more secure with a few add-ons and tweaking and that you want more privacy and not get tracked by Google or Microsoft but who knows, maybe they will let you have it.
Good point. It definitely is true that I don’t need as privacy at work for my own good - I use my work device exclusively for work. Also, like you said, it is just about opting for open source whenever it is practical.
I think from the perspective of the IT department it makes sense to unify programs that people use. As I cannot really tell what your company does it’s hard to argue for it but if the company does something website related in IT you could argue that it’s important to test on all browsers to ensure that it works for all users. Aldo you could try to find information about data collection and how quickly security issues are fixed by each browser manufacturer.
That makes sense, and no, I have a completely non-tech job, so there isn’t a good use case for me like testing websites. I will see if there is compelling data on security fixes though.
Lean in and promote switching all machines to Linux for security reasons ;)
Joking aside… probably little you can do as from an IT department perspective it makes sense to restrict what can be installed on machines managed by them. Your best bet is probably a bring-your-own-device like exception that absolves them from support liability (edit: what I mean: they probably don’t really care about security, especially if this are Windows PCs, but rather want to reduce the support burden on them).
“so you want security?”
takes the Qubes OS installation media out
You’re right. Put my device where my mouth is and start using my personal laptop to get work done. I am not to that point yet, but it is a good back burner idea.
In terms of security, the only major advantage that I know of for Chrome/Edge is that they automatically check for leaked passwords. Otherwise, an already up and running Firefox is just as good — if not better — than those two, so switching would likely be a waste of time.
By the way, do you happen to know if there are any Firefox-exclusive extensions installed in your machine? That would make for the most compelling case, IMO.
By leaked password you mean they check if a website’s database was compromised and the data was sold? Firefox does that too.
You’re right! I got Firefox Desktop and Firefox Mobile mixed up. The latter does not support this feature. My apologies.
There aren’t any specific extensions on the computer. We are locked down tight in some weird ways, so I haven’t even tried to install any. For instance, I have icons on my desktop than need admin permissions to delete - some internal reporting shortcuts (sort of make sense) and adobe suite (of all things). They prefer a sledgehammer approach because they’re understaffed.
edit: They’ve locked down extensions on Chrome, but the Firefox store is wide open.
The Chrome extension store is riddled with malware and general scam extensions. Part of the reason is Chrome’s massive market share making it the most enticing target for browser extension malware authors. That said, Google absolutely has the man power and technical ability to combat it even despite the amount of activity the Chrome Web Store gets, but they barely bother to moderate their store at all.
https://betanews.com/2014/01/23/chrome-has-a-malware-problem-and-google-needs-to-fix-it/ - this article is from 2014 and AFAIK it has not gotten much better. The article also mentions how Firefox is somewhat better in terms of moderating extensions. Full disclosure, I don’t know if Firefox has slackened their moderation policies in recent years, but I have not seen any reports directly stating that they have. Here’s are Firefox’s stated moderation policies, at least.
https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2014/01/seeking-higher-ground-after-chrome-extension-adwaremalware-problems/ - also from 2014, also mentions Firefox
https://www.wired.co.uk/article/fake-chrome-extensions-malware - from 2019
That’s as good of a reason as any not to use Chrome as far as I’m concerned. My folks have gotten around the problem by limiting the available extensions to just one - Acrobat.
Yeah, happened to my dad. His company only allows Microsoft Edge.
