PayPal has recently announced that they may soon prohibit users from using their site if you have a non-secure web browser. Most older browsers do not offer phishing protection, or support ExtendedValidation SSL Certificates.
Browsers under consideration for banishment include Firefox vers. 1, InternetExplorer vers. 3 and 4, and ALL Versions of Safari. Most users have newer/better browsers, but some have never upgraded. If you haven't upgraded, what are you waiting for?
Re: PayPal
They released a statement that says Safari won't be banned, nor will current versions of any other browser either. Banning old browsers is not a bad idea though.
What I think they should ban
They should deny access to:
You know what, I think this is a good move for PayPal.
PayPal and older browsers
Combined, PayPal and eBay were the targets of approx. 75% of phishing attempts several years ago. It has hurt their businesses, and they want to rebuild customer trust. PayPal is concidering the following policy on browsers at their site:
Version N (current) – allow with no messaging.
Version N-1 (previous major version) – allow, but with a warning message.
Version N-2, or older – disallow, with a message indicating why.
The above 3 lines were cut/pasted directly from a PayPal whitepaper on phishing dated April2008.
The irony of it all...
PayPal is wholly owned be eBay. The irony of it is that eBay makes money off of antiques, PayPal looses money on antiques.
I have the new Paypal plugin
I have the new Paypal plugin which among other things has a feature to flag unsafe sites. I don't have much confidence in it however. So far, the only unsafe site it has flagged was the Ebay main site!! Ebay of course is the owner of Paypal!!! And yes, it was the legitimate Ebay site and not a spoof site!
In response to Sagebrush...
I think PayPal was tricked by the look of a fake eBay. They were probably not paying attention to the address bar.