11 ms·

I have exactly the opposite experience with B2B. We’re working with financial institutions and large dealers and what they use is typically white listed and con

I have exactly the opposite experience with B2B. We’re working with financial institutions and large dealers and what they use is typically white listed and controlled by an IT department. Typically, they can’t just change and use whatever they want. You must be talking about small businesses?

KaoruAoiShiho 7y ago
> I'm fortunate enough to be in the B2B where our customers are generally less tech inclined
duxup 7y ago
Some are small. Having said that some are pretty well known large companies, but the business units that sort of operate on their own if only due to their archaic nature. The company has a policy, it just doesn't always apply to them. Logistics is a weird industry ;)
- websitescenes 7y ago
  I always found logistics interesting. Moving stuff around efficiently seems to be a real art. Many opportunities to use data. We use a few different logistics companies and I kick around the idea of bringing it in house sometimes.
  - duxup 7y ago
    The catch seems to be managing all the different data that isn't comparable, but should be. Like every logistics organization does something some weird way (carrier, client, end customer, everyone's accounting...), they're sure it is the right way, and then the next one does it the "right way" another way and now nothing is a 1:1 ;) Lots of old / skewed / strange practices that requires a lot of unexpected maintenance / changes. It's easy to end up swimming in a lot of bad / not equivalent data.
- sabas_ge 7y ago
  Weird and stuck to weird standards where there are any :D
_bxg1 7y ago
Unless they're running an unsupported version of Windows, they almost certainly have Edge preinstalled; they don't have to go download Chrome.
- kube-system 7y ago
  Windows 7 is supported through 2023 if you have enough cash.
- starik36 7y ago
  Windows 8 and 8.1 are still supported pretty far into the future.
  - _bxg1 7y ago
    I doubt many enterprises upgraded to those, though. Even regular consumers hated the interface upheaval, and enterprises are extra sensitive to those kinds of changes.
thoraway1010 7y ago
Same with govt agencies. They will whitelist super old known insecure java versions / windows versions etc that can NEVER change. I remember having to downgrade to windows 7 to access one VPN setup (yes - to get through the security firewalls you had to downgrade the entire stack to something the "security" firewall handled). I think this all was in part because they don't patch / update, so some stuff (flash / activeX etc) just doesn't work well on a modern machine Ironically, they also would let their key domains expire but thankfully folks just would call a helpdesk and get an IP address to use (but these domain endpoints were 100% being hit by downgraded / unpatched machines so if someone had purchased the domain it would have been bad news). For some places that were not inside an agency we had had to keep the "secure" machine separate from the actual network because it was the most vulnerable. Thankfully, the help desk was so overwhelmed with calls about this horribly fragile system that they would reset anyone's password over the phone, so user lockouts were easy to handle, call up, ask that so and so's password be reset to XXXX and done (virtually no authentication other than knowing what number to dial). This was critical because the passwords had to be changed every 30 days and were insanely complex - we had lockouts even though folks thought they'd written them down properly right next to the machine (cap / lower / number / letter confusion issues?). Meanwhile, my google account has proper two factor authentication, can be accessed from most any modern device, rate limits and screens login attempts in a smart way, and I haven't had to change my password in 15 years (so I could pick a hard one I don't use elsewhere). Fun times!
- rietta 7y ago
  The govt agencies I work with officially use Google Chrome.
  - gentleman11 7y ago
    That is sketchy. You would think the government cares more about privacy
    - r-w 7y ago
      Why would one think that?
mstade 7y ago
Ditto, and what's worse is when those white lists conflict with other requirements, such as "must work on latest Chrome version" but there's no way to test that without making a production release, because on the internal networks you're only able to use the whitelisted version, which is usually months to a year behind, and even that's an exception made specifically for devs because otherwise you should really be using IE. When pointing this out the answer typically goes like "well, try your best I guess?" It's really something.
- house9-2 7y ago
  Would a product like browserstack help you test all the required versions? https://www.browserstack.com/ https://www.browserstack.com/
sodapopcan 7y ago
I work for a B2B that deals with very large customers and we do exactly as OP of this thread describes--We offer zero support for IE.
dx034 7y ago
Not just financial institutions. Allowing any user to install anything on their computers is dangerous from an IT Security perspective and tends to lead to chaos.

KaoruAoiShiho 7y ago

> I'm fortunate enough to be in the B2B where our customers are generally less tech inclined

duxup 7y ago

Some are small. Having said that some are pretty well known large companies, but the business units that sort of operate on their own if only due to their archaic nature. The company has a policy, it just doesn't always apply to them. Logistics is a weird industry ;)

websitescenes 7y ago
I always found logistics interesting. Moving stuff around efficiently seems to be a real art. Many opportunities to use data. We use a few different logistics companies and I kick around the idea of bringing it in house sometimes.
- duxup 7y ago
  The catch seems to be managing all the different data that isn't comparable, but should be. Like every logistics organization does something some weird way (carrier, client, end customer, everyone's accounting...), they're sure it is the right way, and then the next one does it the "right way" another way and now nothing is a 1:1 ;) Lots of old / skewed / strange practices that requires a lot of unexpected maintenance / changes. It's easy to end up swimming in a lot of bad / not equivalent data.
sabas_ge 7y ago
Weird and stuck to weird standards where there are any :D

_bxg1 7y ago

Unless they're running an unsupported version of Windows, they almost certainly have Edge preinstalled; they don't have to go download Chrome.

kube-system 7y ago
Windows 7 is supported through 2023 if you have enough cash.
starik36 7y ago
Windows 8 and 8.1 are still supported pretty far into the future.
- _bxg1 7y ago
  I doubt many enterprises upgraded to those, though. Even regular consumers hated the interface upheaval, and enterprises are extra sensitive to those kinds of changes.

thoraway1010 7y ago

Same with govt agencies. They will whitelist super old known insecure java versions / windows versions etc that can NEVER change. I remember having to downgrade to windows 7 to access one VPN setup (yes - to get through the security firewalls you had to downgrade the entire stack to something the "security" firewall handled). I think this all was in part because they don't patch / update, so some stuff (flash / activeX etc) just doesn't work well on a modern machine Ironically, they also would let their key domains expire but thankfully folks just would call a helpdesk and get an IP address to use (but these domain endpoints were 100% being hit by downgraded / unpatched machines so if someone had purchased the domain it would have been bad news). For some places that were not inside an agency we had had to keep the "secure" machine separate from the actual network because it was the most vulnerable. Thankfully, the help desk was so overwhelmed with calls about this horribly fragile system that they would reset anyone's password over the phone, so user lockouts were easy to handle, call up, ask that so and so's password be reset to XXXX and done (virtually no authentication other than knowing what number to dial). This was critical because the passwords had to be changed every 30 days and were insanely complex - we had lockouts even though folks thought they'd written them down properly right next to the machine (cap / lower / number / letter confusion issues?). Meanwhile, my google account has proper two factor authentication, can be accessed from most any modern device, rate limits and screens login attempts in a smart way, and I haven't had to change my password in 15 years (so I could pick a hard one I don't use elsewhere). Fun times!

rietta 7y ago
The govt agencies I work with officially use Google Chrome.
- gentleman11 7y ago
  That is sketchy. You would think the government cares more about privacy
  - r-w 7y ago
    Why would one think that?

mstade 7y ago

Ditto, and what's worse is when those white lists conflict with other requirements, such as "must work on latest Chrome version" but there's no way to test that without making a production release, because on the internal networks you're only able to use the whitelisted version, which is usually months to a year behind, and even that's an exception made specifically for devs because otherwise you should really be using IE. When pointing this out the answer typically goes like "well, try your best I guess?" It's really something.

house9-2 7y ago
Would a product like browserstack help you test all the required versions? https://www.browserstack.com/ https://www.browserstack.com/

sodapopcan 7y ago

I work for a B2B that deals with very large customers and we do exactly as OP of this thread describes--We offer zero support for IE.

dx034 7y ago

Not just financial institutions. Allowing any user to install anything on their computers is dangerous from an IT Security perspective and tends to lead to chaos.