The Register on Web Sites that Block Minority BrowsersFriday October 25th, 2002johndoe writes: "The Register is running a brief but interesting article on a familiar problem: sites that lock out non-MS browsers and operating systems." UPDATE! The Register has a follow-up article that names alternative browser saints and sinners. heh "a brief but interesting article". I was looking for a page 2. I didn't realize that the article was over until I noticed the little (R) symbol. CIBC in canada is the same as those other banks that it mentions. They don't let anyone who is not using nav 4 or ie 5/6 use their site either, yet they keep asking me to do my banking online. So far banks and computer game companies (the store at nintendo and ea [ea was fixed iirc]) are the only sites that I have had problems with. My school, UFT, used to say it doesn't support netscape 6 but it allowed you in anyways and never had a problem. I just noticed that they recently removed the warning. It was "fixed" over a month ago. I don't know exactly what changed, but I can now do my CIBC online banking again with the latest Mozilla builds. Are you serious? ctrl-T, www.cibc... "CIBC Online Banking now supports Netscape Communicator 4.8 and Netscape 6.2.x. We recommend you download version Netscape 6.2.1 or higher. Please note: This does not include Netscape 7.0 as we are still currently testing this recently released browser." hm. Right. The warning has always been there - but it's just information. Up until about 4-6 weeks ago you were actually unable to do any banking. Now you can. Even though the warning remains. I just finished paying some bills at CIBC just minutes before typing this... http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=145959 It was actually resolved on September 27th. But also see the following (still open) about the "disclaimer text": http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=97034 CIBC worked great with Mozilla for a long time, even back in the M16 days but told visitors that they only supported IE and NS 4.x. I recall when the image handler in Mozilla was changed having to click on some linked images by memory since the real ones weren't rendered properly. There was a problematic time as well when Mozilla adjusted its ssl handling. Several months ago they started doing a redirect when visiting with Mozilla to their home page even though the site worked fine. It's good to see that they're once again allowing site usage based on capability. I have just emailed M&S to complain about their "disallowing" of "alternative" browsers. There is no alternative to Phoenix!! :) I don't see a point in complaining to them again. This issue is Tech Evangelism bug 164280 http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=164280 and Marks & Spencer has said that they are working on allowing more browsers. If you want to help with Tech Evangelism, there are plenty of sites that have not been contacted by anyone. As a start, here are the Unconfirmed Tech Evangelism bugs: http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/buglist.cgi?short_desc_type=allwordssubstr&short_desc=&product=Tech+Evangelism&long_desc_type=substring&long_desc=&bug_file_loc_type=allwordssubstr&bug_file_loc=&status_whiteboard_type=allwordssubstr&status_whiteboard=&keywords_type=allwords&keywords=&bug_status=UNCONFIRMED&emailassigned_to1=1&emailtype1=exact&email1=&emailassigned_to2=1&emailreporter2=1&emailqa_contact2=1&emailtype2=exact&email2=&bugidtype=include&bug_id=&votes=&changedin=&chfieldfrom=&chfieldto=Now&chfieldvalue=&cmdtype=doit&order=Reuse+same+sort+as+last+time&field0-0-0=noop&type0-0-0=noop&value0-0-0= If he banks there, there's a good reason to complain; they're more likely to fix it if they actually get customer requests for it than they are if it's just the browser maker. I still don't think it makes a difference if the complainer is a customer. By complaining and not taking your business elsewhere, you're just confirming your loyalty to that business. If you're so loyal, why would they do anything to try to keep your business? They already have it! Instead of merely complaining, take your business elsewhere. Get another credit card and transfer your balance. Get another bank account and transfer your savings. Shop at another online store. Then, only after you've given someone else your patronage, send a kind letter informing the original site of that fact. This lets them know their policies are costing them money, and they'll be much more likely to change those policies. I use TD Canada Trust for online banking with Mozilla without problems - even downloads to Quicken work fine. The Toyota web site insists on IE, I believe. I'd like to read the articles. But every time I click on the links with Phoenix (10/23 nightly Win32) I get a msg that the server has refused the connection. Is "The Register" trying to illustrate its own point that way? I don't know if thats an official bug but I also also had that happen from time to time. Every once in a while I get a build that just give tons of "connection refused" errors and blank pages. The same page always loads right up in IE or any other browser. And while it hasn't happened in a long time, It just happened again to me this week with one of the nightlies. I haven't got a clue as to what it could possibly be. I've been heavily using UBS http://www.ubs.com/ for my e-banking. Mozilla/Linux perfectly working. |