Weatherlawyer wrote:

AOL uses a form of IE that is peculiar to their own service. It means

Yes, they use to use a crippled version of Netscape...

that they can protect newbies far better than might be the case with

Well yes and no... their knobbled IE is setup with better defaults than
the MS default install, but it still runs most of the IE exploits.

The other bigger concern was their use of a VPN over the top of the
basic network connection. This ties the client computer closer to the
network than would otherwise be the case, and in itself can reduce
security.

For example, if you use a router to provide access which has a built in
firewall (as most do), the AOL VPN will tunnel straight past it without
giving it a chance to inspect the packets enroute. You are hence back to
a single layer of protection via software on the target computer again.

off the shelf ware. It also means they can identify all the problems
that arise with the small selection of OSs available to run their
software on.

I suppose that is why they can afford to run such excellent free help.

Unless you admit you are not using their supplied software, in which
case they will tell you to go away!

--
Cheers,

John.

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| Internode Ltd - http://www.internode.co.uk |
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| John Rumm - john(at)internode(dot)co(dot)uk |
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