Upgrade Your Tech Game!

Greetings! Friendly-Neighborhood Instructional Technician, here!

It's been a while since I've had the opportunity to output some guidance on various happenings, changes, updates, upgrades, and all the various ins and outs of what is going on in the technology department and across the district here at Hudson ISD but especially with some of our most recent shifts, I want to renew my efforts here.

First of all, I know one of the biggest current situations is the move away from Google Chrome browser for internet access. To help explain some of the reasoning behind that, if you're interested, the article below outlines just one aspect of why we're making these moves to get ahead of what will certainly be serious problems in the future that are wholly outside of our own control.

‘Phased Out’—Google Confirms Bad News For 3 Billion Chrome Users

With that said, some good news is that the change is, in fact, not as drastic as it might seem at a glance.

How many remember the days of dial-up? Heard of NetscapeNavigator or better yet Lynx or Mosaic (not me!)? I remember surfing Internet Explorer for years before Google/Chrome hit the scene but ironically, years ago, Microsoft actually used Chromium (Google's base browser software framework) to build and develop Microsoft Edge, their replacement for the now legacy browser, Internet Explorer. In other words, the 'skeleton' (even the 'internal organs' and such) of Chrome is the same 'skeleton' (and such) in Edge. The "differences" are primarily only 'skin-deep'. To extend the metaphor, except that the "immune system" that protects from diseases (malware and viruses, etc) is demonstrably better by some important metrics.

Likewise, given the similarities one of the strongest advantages we have with Microsoft Edge is the same service we have always done our best to provide: our ability to quickly respond to block threats and remove problems as soon as they are identified or even in pre-emptive strategies to wholly prevent issues before they hit us, but especially before they hit YOU. We absolutely cannot do this with Chrome. We want you to be able to put 90% or more of all the cybersecurity concerns out of your mind so you can focus on your work. We don't want you all to have to keep up with the newest threats and all the constant checking and ensuring every page or extension or applet is still safe and secure (because we have multiple times even found previously safe option later became hijacked or otherwise compromised).

The good news is that all your favorites and passwords can be easily migrated over from Chrome accounts, even multiple accounts, if needed.

(for more in-depth instructions, click the image above for a full article of guidance)

I hope this helps!!