If you’re asking which browsers you can use, you may use Firefox, Chrome, or whatever you prefer (except IE).
What version of Windows do the machines’ control software require? You could run Windows in a VM on Linux and have a much more secure setup.
She started with XP on a laptop to run the programs that control her various machines. She keeps that laptop exclusively XP and uses it when she has to, but is slow. She also has a dell inspiron Duo (net book) that came with windows 7 that will run the programs. The Windows support person said that the mother board in her HP desktop was not made to run win7. The desktop starts up with a screen that says the windows 7 she is running is not genuine. She can close that pop up and run programs for a few mins. then it crashes to a blue screen of death.