Dell and Security
I bought a new Dell back last September, and though I generally love the damn thing, I gotta say that the Dell Support Software is a joke. Rant warning . . .
First of all, the damn Support thing has been giving me “alerts” about the “security settings” I’m running. It says my Internet Explorer settings are insecure. Now, this is laughable since I don’t USE Internet Explorer for anything but testing webpages and running Windows Update, since it’s a totally insecure and broken piece of manure.
So Dell tells me my drivers need updating, I go to the support site to find the new drivers, by clicking the link in the Dell Support software, my default browser opens . . . and Dell tells me I’m using an unsupported browser. That’s Firefox, which has a significant market share these days. So I have to use an Insecure Broken Browser for doing anything with Dell, since THEY REQUIRE THE DAMN THING for interfacing with their support site. Excuse me? You tell me I’M INSECURE???? Dell REQUIREs ActiveX to be turned on to use their damn support site (Which, by the way, I only enable on a site by site basis, since it is so damned insecure.) Oh, and the issue they were squawking about re ME being insecure? The phishing thing, which I turned off since it was throwing an error consistently when I tested pages in IE locally. Oh yeah, that works REALLY well . . .
It was actually easier updating drivers on my old box I built myself, since they’d come up as optional hardware updates from within Windows Update.
Now, I could ALMOST understand this crapola on a box they sell as a home user box, though it’s been a long time since IE had over 90% market share. But I purchased through Dell Home Business (so I could get XP instead of Vista, and not have to get all that junkware they load home boxes with.) The LEAST that Dell could do would be to support all major browsers. And if they can’t do that, then THEIR SOFTWARE is insecure, not mine. It’s either that or they are too damn lazy to support what is fast becoming a significant portion of their clientele, who are those who are security conscious enough to use a REAL browser.
Technorati Tags: Dell Support Software, Dell Support Website, Dell Browser Compatibility
April 25th, 2008 at 10:18 am
Forget the Dell-”Service”. I sold my broken Dell-notebook and bought an EEE instead. I don´t regret this step…
April 28th, 2008 at 1:50 pm
I’m mostly a Mac person, but I do have a Dell and I’ve been pretty pleased with their support.
April 28th, 2008 at 2:01 pm
My gripe is more about the support tools and the support website, not the support people. I’ve not had need of using their support people, though I did have a great urge to shout at one or two after attempting to use their support tools and website.