PayPal To Block Safari And Old Browsers
Popular payment service, PayPal, is planning on blocking browsers that don’t have any anti-phishing feature. If implemented, this would mean that older versions of Internet Explorer and Firefox would be blocked. Apple’s Safari browser will also be blocked by the payment service should the plan come to fruition.
PayPal’s Chief Information Security Officer, Michael Barrett, said in a paper (PDF) released at the recent RSA conference:
“Letting users view the PayPal site on one of these browsers is equal to a car manufacturer allowing drivers to buy one of their vehicles without seatbelts.”
This shouldn’t be a problem for IE and Firefox users as both browsers are updated regularly. Safari users, on the other hand, will just have to use a different browser when accessing the PayPal site.
What do you think?
[High five to Gregg Keizer]
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April 20th, 2008 03:31
That will suck. They already impose a lot of restriction if you access Paypal using any proxy or so
Madhur Kapoor’s last blog post..Send free SMS to 38 countries with Jaxtr
April 20th, 2008 10:13
@Madhur:
That’s true buddy. Some of my friends have been complaining about that recently.
April 20th, 2008 17:06
I don’t mind if they are doing it to protect all the user accounts. There must be reason why they are doing this exercise.
Syahid A.’s last blog post..How to Access Favorite Folders from Various Open/Save Dialogs
April 20th, 2008 17:26
If someone steals my $17.14 I probably won’t go hungry…haha!
Bobby Revell’s last blog post..Solicitation: Britney Spears & Judge Judy
April 20th, 2008 20:27
@Syahid:
I agree buddy.
@Bobby:
LOL
April 21st, 2008 01:33
I think it’s more in the court of Apple now…. They obviously need to update the operations of Safari if they want to keep up with Firefox and IE (I hate IE BTW!).
I think PayPal has it’s own integrity to keep and security is a big key issue when money and private data is involved.
Forest Parks’s last blog post..When Bloggers Attack!
April 21st, 2008 09:31
The quote is very nice….“Letting users view the PayPal site on one of these browsers is equal to a car manufacturer allowing drivers to buy one of their vehicles without seatbelts.”
TechPavan’s last blog post..Sunday Pastime #4: World’s Costliest Ad
April 21st, 2008 19:03
@Forest:
That’s true. I think Apple will just have to release a “more secure” browser a little earlier than they planned hehe.
@TechPavan:
Haha I liked that part too
April 21st, 2008 22:35
haha I need to tell my freind who recently fall in love with Safari. Its a good move by Paypal.
Ashish Mohta’s last blog post..Expanding Our Network - Forums
April 22nd, 2008 06:20
That’s slightly incorrect Safari won’t be blocked. The Wall Street Journal blog had an article about this today. Safari was mentioned as a browser that won’t be blocked. A rep from Paypal stopped by the WSJ blog to comment. I’m writing an article about this on the tech website about this for the tech website I write for. I mainly write from a Mac perspective.
I can see why they are trying to protect themselves. A lot of people seem to have problems with people stealing their money from their Paypal account. I never understood why Safari did not have anti-phishing implemented in their browser. Although Mac’s don’t get a lot of viruses they still can receive them. Yeah I plan to include a mini-rant about that in my article. I just need some more info about why they don’t use it.
Opal Tribble - Vegan Momma’s last blog post..Make Money Online with Associated Content
April 22nd, 2008 06:23
That should have been…
Although Mac’s don’t get a lot of viruses, hacks, etc., it is still possible especially if you run Windows OS on your Mac. I don’t use it on my Mac.
Opal Tribble - Vegan Momma’s last blog post..Make Money Online with Associated Content
April 22nd, 2008 16:59
@Ashish:
Let me know when you’ve got your post up so I can link to it when I add the correction 
LOL
@Opal:
Thanks for clearing that up
April 23rd, 2008 09:46
This is a good move by Paypal to make accounts secure.
Nirmal’s last blog post..Scan Files for Virus before Downloading Using Dr.Web
April 24th, 2008 04:18
I’ll put it up this weekend and make it into an opinion piece another writer wrote about it for the tech website and although I could have written about it instantly since i mainly write for Mac on their I decided to wait a few days.
I still think Apple needs to have anti-phishing installed. I can see how people would think Apple was included in the list. I am all for “personal responsibility” but I do like when companies look out for their customers also. I believe Apple should have this feature regardless if the attacks against the browser would be small.
I saw the stories circulating that Safari would be blocked last week I was skeptical about it did not have time to post from that perspective though.
Opal Tribble - Vegan Momma’s last blog post..Make Money Online with Associated Content
April 25th, 2008 22:55
It’s time for Apple to update their browser.
I think Paypal has done the right thing. Who wants their account to get hacked?
Haris’s last blog post..26 Amazing Future Projects Of Dubai
May 1st, 2008 20:10
I think this is a really important security measure for Paypal to take. PayPal has had some pretty serious issues with security when it comes to people’s accounts getting hacked. While they’ve been doing a fairly good job on the clean-up front (reimbursing customers for the mistakes made and acting on fraudulent use of accounts), they clearly need to amp up the security measures so passwords cannot be randomly changed, credit card and bank information accessed, etc. I think naturally this means updating a lot of the systems, which means creating something that does not necessarily work as well with browsers that have become defunct or haven’t been updated in a while. While it may be annoying for people, it’s better for security in the long run and for protecting really sensitive information. Also, there ARE free browsers (Firefox), so finding something compatible and letting go of the old ways shouldn’t be so much of an issue in the interest of security.
Computer Consulting Kit Preview Blog’s last blog post..IT Marketing: Get More from Those Direct Mail Postcards!
May 9th, 2008 02:52
Sounds more reasonnable as Safari is quite outdated now…
Olivier’s last blog post..Kylie Minogue X Tour
May 10th, 2008 11:41
My first thought when I saw this was “They’d really cut off all of the iPhone users?” I see they decided against blocking Safari, though.