Multiple browsers in the Enterprise...

pclancy

What are your thoughts or your company policies?

We're planning a Win7/Citrix/Office 2010 rollout later in the year and are hoping to only provide IE9 but I have the feeling once we're done certain users, especially senior ones or those with political clout are going to ask for browsers such as Firefox or Chrome. Obviously these are much harder manage with group policy and have constant updates etc, our organization uses approx 400 different web and server based applications and many are old legacy systems that are a pain to get to work with modern browsers.

Basically I'm wondering whats the general feeling out there with deploying Firefox or Chrome in the enterprise or if your organization simply says no, take what you're given.

BaconZombie

Chrome can be installed and updated by the end-user without Admin right with can be good and bad.

I've stopped using Firefox since they roll out update almost everyday your need to logon as an Admin to install it. Yes I know you can disable this but there is no easy way to push update to users.

I'd ban IE if I could but we have a few apps that will only run IE and the 3rd party will not provide support if we use any other browser.

oB1

pclancy wrote: »

What are your thoughts or your company policies?

We're planning a Win7/Citrix/Office 2010 rollout later in the year and are hoping to only provide IE9 but I have the feeling once we're done certain users, especially senior ones or those with political clout are going to ask for browsers such as Firefox or Chrome. Obviously these are much harder manage with group policy and have constant updates etc, our organization uses approx 400 different web and server based applications and many are old legacy systems that are a pain to get to work with modern browsers.

Basically I'm wondering whats the general feeling out there with deploying Firefox or Chrome in the enterprise or if your organization simply says no, take what you're given.

I myself always favor Chrome as my personal browser choice BUT on an enterprise level, it would always have to be IE (Unfortunately)

IE has certain features on an enterprise level, that other browsers do not, like SharePoint integration etc..

IE Is easily managed by the IT Department, updating policies etc.

so to put simply, on an enterprise level, IE is the way to go.. for all end users.. they may live with it

you could make SOME SMALL exceptions here and there, say for the CEO, MD.. and yourself of course

Rob

Blowfish

You could go with the don't ask, don't tell approach. Basically roll out IE9, if they wan't to install Chrome etc. don't prevent them, but don't provide support for it either.

LoGiE

Hey,

To be honest in a large enterprise your looking for trouble letting people choose there own browsers, they shouldn't have rights to install anything especially the one's that think they're computer savy!

When I've come across this issue it's often because I've set the hompage to our intranet site. I've a seperate policy that set's "the google" as there homepage and that's about as far as I'll go. If they want Chrome or Firefox ask them why? I've always found pointing out the machine is used for business and they can use whatever browser they want on there own home pc does the trick.

Just so you know, I've completed our roll out of windows 7 and there are issues with Group Policy Preferences and IE9.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2530309
http://blogs.technet.com/b/asiasupp/archive/2011/03/30/internet-explorer-9-ie9-group-policy-preferences-gpp.aspx

Good luck!

LoGiE

BaconZombie

What do you use to block Chrome installs?

LoGiE wrote: »

Hey,

To be honest in a large enterprise your looking for trouble letting people choose there own browsers, they shouldn't have rights to install anything especially the one's that think they're computer savy!

When I've come across this issue it's often because I've set the hompage to our intranet site. I've a seperate policy that set's "the google" as there homepage and that's about as far as I'll go. If they want Chrome or Firefox ask them why? I've always found pointing out the machine is used for business and they can use whatever browser they want on there own home pc does the trick.

Just so you know, I've completed our roll out of windows 7 and there are issues with Group Policy Preferences and IE9.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2530309
http://blogs.technet.com/b/asiasupp/archive/2011/03/30/internet-explorer-9-ie9-group-policy-preferences-gpp.aspx

Good luck!

LoGiE

LoGiE

BaconZombie wrote: »

What do you use to block Chrome installs?

I use a few methods to block unwanted programs including Chrome.

- Software restriction polices in GP for the handful of XP machines left.

- Applocker on the Windows 7 Clients, again configured through GP

I also run reports in SCCM which looks for uncategorized software followed by an email with a link to the ICT corporate policy to there line manager.

This may seem a bit harsh but all goes back to sysadmin 101 Lock it down!

LoGiE

CptSternn

At the last three enterprise environments I administered via SCCM we took the same approach as Blowfish above pointed out. We do not install them, and if users decide to install them they can, but they will receive no help from the admins or helpdesk if problems occur. We also had disclaimers that were browser specific pop up in Sharepoint and on the intranet that clearly stated when accessed that detected other browsers and would pop up with a warning telling the user that the browser they were using was not authorised by the company and any issues encountered would not be sorted by the IT team unless they accessed the site using IE browser.

pclancy

Yeah on desktops/laptops we're going to lock down Windows 7 with IE9 and Applocker. Will be using Altiris to report on what's installed out there and probably adopt a similar policy to the above post where we put in a disclaimer relinquishing IT from the support of anything other then IE9 if another browser did make it to the desktops.

The old and weird applications will hopefully end up on less then 10% of our devices, a majority will be Citrix terminals too where you cant install anything then what you're presented with.

Cheers for the feedback.