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voipnpots
join:2011-10-13
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voipnpots

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[Business] Comcast Business Class website overhaul today!

They just changed the whole look of it today!

Edit: only the home page seems to have dramatically changed.

I have noticed over the passed few months that some button colors and other things, like word colors, have changed.

It seems they are in the middle of revamping the website.

NetFixer
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1 edit

NetFixer

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Re: Comcast just overhauled their Business Class website!

said by voipnpots:

They just changed the whole look of it today!

Edit: only the home page seems to have dramatically changed.

I have noticed over the passed few months that some button colors and other things, like word colors, have changed.

It seems they are in the middle of revamping the website.




It looks about the same to me as I remember it when I signed up for Business Class service almost a year ago. Perhaps that is because I have not whitelisted all of the third party marketing and tracking sites that infest that page.

I did not try clicking all of the links to see which ones do/don't work without whitelisting the tracking sites, but they may soon discover that new business class orders will fall off if information is blocked unless the tracking sites are allowed. I know that I will usually just leave a site that requires that I whitelist numerous tracking sites just to get information about that company's products or services, and make my purchase elsewhere.




OK, I temporarily enabled the tracking sites, and the look of the entry page did change dramatically. However, many privacy and security conscious vistors, will not see the new "improvements".

Fortunately, they don't seem to have messed with the Comcast Business Class Portal site that is needed to maintain your account.
voipnpots
join:2011-10-13
USA

voipnpots

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Their new home page is more along the lines of AT&T's business home page.

Also, I am assuming they are just temporarily "playing" with the website before the final upgrade? I've seen some websites (like Apple) have a temporarily different appearance before they overhaul it.

newview
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said by NetFixer:

Perhaps that is because I have not whitelisted all of the third party marketing and tracking sites that infest that page.

Here's another (NetMining) that NoScript doesn't appear to be reporting ...

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said by voipnpots:

Their new home page is more along the lines of AT&T's business home page.

Also, I am assuming they are just temporarily "playing" with the website before the final upgrade? I've seen some websites (like Apple) have a temporarily different appearance before they overhaul it.

No, I suspect that someone in Comcast management has a vested interest in using those third party sites to display content. Some people (and companies) never learn (or simply do not care), that using such off-site material exposes them (and their customers) to much greater risk than doing their own coding and content production (or at least hosting it on their own site). It was infected third party links that caused the recent comcast.com infection (although I doubt that you will be able to find a Comcast spokesperson who would ever admit that there was a problem).
NetFixer

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said by newview:

said by NetFixer:

Perhaps that is because I have not whitelisted all of the third party marketing and tracking sites that infest that page.

Here's another (NetMining) that NoScript doesn't appear to be reporting ...

Probably because the domains that either NoScript (or my perimeter firewall) blocked prevented NetMining from even getting their foot in the door. I often notice (on the rare occasions that I bother to enable such tracking sites), that allowing one such domain to get their foot in the door results in many other domains suddenly trying to gain entrance.

I know for a fact that omniture is silently blocked by my perimeter firewall, and that is probably the gateway that allowed NetMining to show up in your browser.
voipnpots
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Well, as it is, the website is kind of awkward. The new home page looks great, but then when you click on something, it goes back to the old format (where there are the "small business" and "enterprise" at the top right). I'm guessing they will edit it some more.

I never knew that there could be third-party eavesdroppers even though my browser never shows anything other than "business.comcast.com". I never got redirected to any other site.

Also, what's wrong with these supposedly "legitimate" third party sites Comcast uses "getting their foot in the door"?

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said by voipnpots:

I never knew that there could be third-party eavesdroppers even though my browser never shows anything other than "business.comcast.com". I never got redirected to any other site.

And the companies doing the tracking depend on most users not being aware. All of the new content that you are seeing on the Comcast Business Class home page is hosted externally.
voipnpots
join:2011-10-13
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I own a Mac and use Safari's default settings. Is there anything I can do to take some safety measures? Is the screenshot that newview posted from a browser or a program?

It's scary to see all of the undercover fluff that's going on when people innocently surf the web.

newview
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newview

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said by voipnpots:

I own a Mac and use Safari's default settings. Is there anything I can do to take some safety measures? Is the screenshot that newview posted from a browser or a program?

It's scary to see all of the undercover fluff that's going on when people innocently surf the web.

The screenshot is from TACO (Targeted Advertising Cookie Opt-Out), a Firefox add-on ... »addons.mozilla.org/en-US ··· okie-op/

I know very little about a Mac and even less about Safari ... but I'm pretty sure there is a Firefox version for Mac.
voipnpots
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My Safari browser has the "block cookies from third parties and advertisers" option enabled. It doesn't look like there are many other security options related to third party tracking.

I have to believe most computers do not have these security measures in place. It also doesn't seem to be a well-known mainstream thing.

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said by voipnpots:

I own a Mac and use Safari's default settings. Is there anything I can do to take some safety measures? Is the screenshot that newview posted from a browser or a program?

It's scary to see all of the undercover fluff that's going on when people innocently surf the web.

I am not sure what security/privacy features are currently available in the Safari browser. I use SeaMonkey with the NoScript add-in that blocks third party content and iframes by default. I don't know what produced the screen shot that newview posted (you will need to ask newview that question). I suspect that it is a browser add-in.

I also did not initially notice a question you asked in a previous post:

Also, what's wrong with these supposedly "legitimate" third party sites Comcast uses "getting their foot in the door"?

The answer is that first, most such offsite content frequently enables tracking you on the internet (which may or may not be an issue for you). The second (and most important) problem is that offsite content is not under the control of the site that (you think) that you are visiting, and it is frequently an attack vector for malware to be introduced to the visitor's computer/network. I cited just such an example for the comcast.com site in a previous post in this thread. And of course, when visitors get infected from such third party content, the primary site will frequently either just pretend that it did not happen, or simply disavow any responsibility.

newview
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said by NetFixer:

... the primary site will frequently either just pretend that it did not happen, or simply disavow any responsibility.

... as evidenced in your previously linked thread ... Comcast never posted ANYTHING in that thread confirming, denying or offering explanations about the OBVIOUS malware infection. They immediately became mute.

... and Comcast wonders why people hate & distrust them.
voipnpots
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Should I feel guilty if I tell someone to go on the Business Class website?

NetFixer
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said by voipnpots:

Should I feel guilty if I tell someone to go on the Business Class website?

That is the only place someone can go to get information about Comcast's Business Class services. How they manage that site is not your responsibility.

And you can be sure that if one of their third party partners gets owned, and causes problems for Comcast customers or site visitors, nobody at Comcast is going to feel guilty.

I have frequently posted links to the Comcast Business Class marketing site (and to the Comcast/Xfinity residential marketing site) in response to questions in this forum. Comcast is really not doing anything different than most companies do on their web sites. Outsourcing content (especially advertisements) is the mainstream way to operate a web site (and it provides a convenient scapegoat when something goes wrong).
voipnpots
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Let me guess...AT&T's website is not outsourced?

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said by voipnpots:

Let me guess...AT&T's website is not outsourced?

That depends on your definition of outsourced. Some of the content on AT&T web sites is hosted on Yahoo! and its many subsidiaries because AT&T and Yahoo! have a partnership relationship.

Physically that content is in effect outsourced because it is hosted on multiple domains, and unlike the Comcast Business Class marketing site, some of those domains have to be whitelisted in order for some of the AT&T web sites to function. So actually some of the AT&T web sites are even worse from a privacy and security standpoint than the Comcast Business Class web site. I can go to the Comcast Business Class marketing site with the external domains blocked, and still navigate the site; that is not the case with some of AT&T's web sites (although I have noticed lately that AT&T does seem to be starting to host more of their marketing content on att.com domains...so perhaps there is a rift forming between AT&T and Yahoo!). I used to have to enable several third party domains to be able to pay my AT&T Wireless bill on-line, but lately, that has no longer been necessary. Their att.net sites (which are used for their landline ISP business) are still firmly interlinked with Yahoo!, but AT&T corporate sites (att.com) seem to be keeping Yahoo! at arms length.

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Re: [Business] Comcast Business Class website overhaul today!

Interesting, I was trying to go there to get info, but it seems to be down for me.

Anyone else?
wapu

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Is there another place I can check if service is available at an address? I am looking for Comcast business, it is a business address. I can't even get the page to load enough to get a phone number.

Funny thing is, when I moved to DC a few years ago their residential site was down when I was looking to order and I ended up going with FIOS.
voipnpots
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It's down for me as well. BTW, I live in Pembroke Pines - I love going to the Boca Town Center mall!

wapu
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said by voipnpots:

It's down for me as well. BTW, I live in Pembroke Pines - I love going to the Boca Town Center mall!

It is an interesting mall, I like pretending I am gonna walk in the Tiffany store with my kids and watching the security guard move in front of the door.
wapu

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It finally loaded and I hit the back button on my mouse. lol, now I will wait again.
voipnpots
join:2011-10-13
USA

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Does Verizon offer FiOS business service at the location?

Also, I've seen a bunch of things change (colors, etc.) on the Business Class website for a while, and all of a sudden there's a new home page today. So I would assume that the reliability issues are due to that and the fact that a third party is hosting their site...

wapu
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said by voipnpots:

Does Verizon offer FiOS business service at the location?

No, I am looking for a location in Deerfield Beach. I just need a ton of bandwidth to augment a Metro-E connection. I will allow phones/Ipads/Kindles/ other bandwidth hogs and visitors to connect to the comcast connection and keep the metro-E for my Site to Site VPN and email.
voipnpots
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Cool,

Someone recently posted a speedtest.net result on YouTube from a Comcast Ethernet connection, and the results are unbelievable.

Take a look:

»www.youtube.com/watch?v= ··· BBfAUvik

DarkLogix
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Re: Comcast just overhauled their Business Class website!

said by NetFixer:

No, I suspect that someone in Comcast management has a vested interest in using those third party sites to display content. Some people (and companies) never learn (or simply do not care), that using such off-site material exposes them (and their customers) to much greater risk than doing their own coding and content production (or at least hosting it on their own site).

I know what you mean I know a company that once had google adsense and analytics and some add in to get the time on the internal intranet

So unless you disabled the mixed content message in IE you'd always get it because although the site was secured via ssl the google parts weren't

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Re: [Business] Comcast Business Class website overhaul today!

said by voipnpots:

Cool,

Someone recently posted a speedtest.net result on YouTube from a Comcast Ethernet connection, and the results are unbelievable.

Take a look:

(youtube clip)

Someone may have indeed posted such a speed test clip, but the clip you posted does not appear to be that clip.

The title of your clip is "Comcast Xfinity Speed Test on Docsis 3 Modem with 100mbs package business class". That is just the current highest speed tier available over standard HFC cable service (and the user appears to have upstream bonding, which is not yet widely available), it is not Metro Ethernet.

Metro Ethernet is a direct fiber connection to the premise, and it is nowhere near as cheap as Comcast's CATV HSI service. If you are an enterprise grade business, and need the bandwidth, it is still usually a bargain compared to what the same bandwidth would cost from a telco, but I suspect that most here in this forum would have heart failure if they were quoted what a symmetrical 100 mbps Metro Ethernet circuit would cost.

DarkLogix
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DarkLogix

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said by NetFixer:

said by voipnpots:

Cool,

Someone recently posted a speedtest.net result on YouTube from a Comcast Ethernet connection, and the results are unbelievable.

Take a look:

(youtube clip)

Someone may have indeed posted such a speed test clip, but the clip you posted does not appear to be that clip.

The title of your clip is "Comcast Xfinity Speed Test on Docsis 3 Modem with 100mbs package business class". That is just the current highest speed tier available over standard HFC cable service (and the user appears to have upstream bonding, which is not yet widely available), it is not Metro Ethernet.

Metro Ethernet is a direct fiber connection to the premise, and it is nowhere near as cheap as Comcast's CATV HSI service. If you are an enterprise grade business, and need the bandwidth, it is still usually a bargain compared to what the same bandwidth would cost from a telco, but I suspect that most here in this forum would have heart failure if they were quoted what a symmetrical 100 mbps Metro Ethernet circuit would cost.

Did you watch that video?
the speed test showed over 100mbps upstream
iirc(105/108)
voipnpots
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Oh, I assumed it was Ethernet because of the upload speed, and because there was a comment by someone under the video that said it was Metro Ethernet.

I've noticed that Comcast doesn't take priority in making their upload speeds faster. Like you said, the upstream bonding seems to be very rare.

DarkLogix
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said by voipnpots:

Oh, I assumed it was Ethernet because of the upload speed, and because there was a comment by someone under the video that said it was Metro Ethernet.

I've noticed that Comcast doesn't take priority in making their upload speeds faster. Like you said, the upstream bonding seems to be very rare.

And I doubt that they'll allow upstream powerboost to hit over 100mbps