Categories
Security Software

Quicken Security Theater

Quicken Password Confirmation

I don’t understand this one. The reason many (most) sites require you to confirm your password is to ensure you typed it correctly when creating your password, otherwise a typo would prevent you from logging back in correctly later. We’ve all “fat fingered” a password before. That simple confirmation step prevents it on creation. How does entering my password twice when logging in provide any additional security? If the password is compromised, the extra field does nothing.

I presume the reason is to make Quicken look/feel more secure than it really is.

I should note that I like Quicken. I like it enough that even though the native Mac version is so disappointing on paper that I never purchased it, I did I purchased the Windows version and continue to use it there. I think that demonstrates my not hating Quicken. It does however have its quirks that just make me wonder what they were thinking.

Categories
Around The Web Mozilla

Browser Tax?

We all know Tax season is here (in the US). So don’t forget to file. We also know there is a Microsoft Tax (you know, the price of the pre-installed copy of Windows on your soon to be Linux PC), and it is possible to get it refunded. New this year is a browser tax, as seen on Digg.

Want to know how much you’ll be paying? There is a formula, but I’ve got a cheat-sheet to help you out. Simply find your browser/platform and look at the filing price. Click to see the full screen and get all pricing. I did this myself between 6:40 and 7:00 PM EST today. Took a little while to crop and get it all together. Yes they are real. No photoshopping done. Note that free filing is offered in certain cases and not in others (which I presume is the offering as part of the free filing program).

Want to get the biggest deduction on filing your taxes with TurboTax? Just look below for the best deal.

For more great financial tips keep an eye on this blog. Next time we’ll talk about how my 401(k) is also incompatible with my browser, and since I used the contact form to mention the bug, it now warns me on every visit.

I’d love to hear Intuit’s explanation of why they are serving different products to certain browsers, and why they are charing different prices in some cases. Amazon tried something like this based on user profiles a few years ago, and it caused some trouble. You can find some information on that by searching Google for amazon price fixing.

Is it legal to make the Free filing option less visible to some users? Hard to say. There is an agreement with the IRS in place that facilitates all that. Didn’t see much about promotion or hiding the offering.

Images in various browsers/platforms can be found below on this post.