I’ve had Fios installed and have been happy with it for some time now. Today’s trouble concerns an upgrade to my D-Link router. The trouble is, I don’t have a D-Link router.
This wouldn’t really worry me, but I want to know if there is some firmware change taking place in the router that my Linksys router won’t get which may abruptly cut off my access to the internet.
The thing is, I refuse to use the D-Link hardware that came for free with the install, because my Linksys router is providing me phone service through Vonage. I will not rearrange my internal network so that Verizon can push arbitrary updates to my router.
So begins my problems.
I logged onto the Verizon site to see what the upgrade is all about. The first problem I encountered: Verizon’s site is completely Firefox incompatible. Ok, time to boot up IE, which is no small task on my computer, since I’ve made a conscious effort to make it difficult for anyone who happens to sit at my console to run.
With IE running, I try logging in again. This time it works and I start reading through the installation notes. Here’s the extent of the description of what this update does:
The D-Link router firmware upgrade is designed to reduce the probability of service disruptions and optimize your Internet performance.
Uh, by doing what, fellas? Does it change the PPPoE procedure in communicating with the central office? That’s really what I want to know. Is my not-D-Link router going to continue to work?
I page through a few pages, and find only instructions for installing the software for a blithering idiot. Tell me again how I’m supposed to be reading the online installation instructions unless, as it says in step 2 of the installation instructions, the “D-Link router is connected to the Fios network”. Moronic.
“Click Continue to begin the firmware upgrade process.” Maybe the download has some details in it, because for one, I don’t download anything when I don’t know what its intent is, and for two, I haven’t read anything yet that gives me more information than the “make go better” on the first page.
So I click the “Continue” and Verizon’s site procedes to use an uninstalled ActiveX control on the page. IE goes crazy with warnings. The page finally redirects to an instruction page on how to disable the warnings and successfully download the ActiveX control.
Put on the breaks here - ActiveX control? Since when do I need to run an ActiveX control to install a firmware upgrade on my router?
Sorry Verizon, your technical support sucks. You’re dumbing things down a little too much and you’re trying to convince users that it’s safe to use your update when clearly you’re installing stuff to their computers that they don’t need, subverts the code-signing protections built into the browser you insist on using, and could end up posing an even greater security risk. It seems that there are things already installed on my system that I didn’t know about that get this process farther along than it should have. It’s probably something that came with IE or your ridiculous installation CD. I will be searching that software out and gutting it at the first chance I get.
If you have any intention of selling your moderate to advanced users (you know, the ones who signed up for Fios in the first place) that you’re not trying to fleece them, you’ll knock off this crap and post some release notes and a clean download link (labeled “For Advanced Users”) to earn some trust.
Verizon, get a clue before you suck.
