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Really? This must be some time ago. I haven't encountered any problems with most government (CRA, Statcan (census) and the like) or bank websites and I'm running Firefox on Linux and Safari on the Mac (which is a minority browser). The only exception is the Air Canada site, which seems to be IE centric.

In fact the Canada Revenue Agency website even supports Opera, among other things.
http://www.netfile.gc.ca/browser-e.html

CIBC, Royal Bank, ScotiaBank, TD Bank, PC Financial all support Safari and other minority browsers
http://www.cibc.com/ca/legal/browser-security.html
http://www.royalbank.com/online/faqindex.html
http://www.scotiabank.com/cda/content/0,1608,CID43 57_LIDen,00.html
http://www.tdcanadatrust.com/ebanking/sup-br.jsp
http://www.banking.pcfinancial.ca/a/security/whatW eDoPopup.page#more_secure_browsers

Coincidently, I was just visiting the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce (CIBC), who had recently loaded new software onto their ATMs, and one of them rebooted moments before I got there. I arrived in time to watch it boot NT 4.0 SP6 advertising 512MB or RAM. It booted to a Windows desktop and spewed out errors on the login script, presumably preventing it from loading the ATM's native UI. Unfortunetly, the ATM doesn't feature a touch-screen, so further investigation was not possible.

Uh, checked your bank statement lately? Here in Canada, at least, most major banks now charge customers for using the ATM. Used to be if you used some other bank's ATM to access your account, you'd pay a fee, but as long as you stuck with your own bank's ATMs, you weren't charged. Now, they all charge you to access your own accounts, even if you use your own bank's ATM. Some even charge you for using a teller. Basically, any time you want to do anything with your money (deposit, withdraw, transfer), whether you use an ATM or a teller, you'll be charged a buck fifty or so.

That's why I switched to CIBC No-Fee Banking.

Not true of CIBC. My girlfriend uses CIBC and we've not been able to connect *once* to their on-line banking system from home, using Mozilla (which is what I use). Doing it from work and using IE is not an ideal solution. I've complained about this but received nothing back.

I bank with Royal Bank and their system has been great. No fancy java or ActiveX rubbish, just plain HTML.

She's now switching to Royal Bank. Vote with your money.

My banking experience under linux is mostly positive. Four banks worked fine, but one was a total stinker.

Royal Bank - never had a problem under mozilla and linux or anything, for that matter. There was an unsupported time period for netscape 6, but it worked for me.

CIBC - works fine under netscape 4.x on linux but not on mozilla. Site is not actively hostile, the logon just doesn't work.

ScotiaBank - the pits. Terrible. A year or two ago, insisted on some bizarro win32 extra-security client. Left and haven't been back.

ING Direct - works fine with netscape /mozilla.

President's Choice Financial - works fine with netscape/mozilla.

Disclaimer: AC because I work for one of the above banks.

I agree with you on the javascript part, but... excluded from pages?

Could you give an example please?

Browser Information

We've designed PC Banking to work with the versions of Netscape browsers (4.06 or above) and Microsoft browsers (4.01 SP2 or above) that support 128-bit encryption. Trial versions of these browsers can be downloaded to locations in Canada and the U.S. only.

Please contact your Internet service provider if you are not sure it supports the use of these versions of Netscape and Microsoft browsers or if you need assistance with upgrading your browser.

Once you've successfully upgraded your browser, you can connect directly to CIBC PC Banking at www.pcbanking.cibc.com or select "on-line banking" from the CIBC homepage and start your on-line banking.

Please select one of the buttons below to download the latest version of the Netscape or Microsoft browser.

Try visiting Toyota Canada without having Opera lie about its identity and you're immediately treated like trash. Have Opera lie about its identity and everything works fine.

I've encountered a number of sites that do this. These just happened to be two convenient examples.

Sorry - just saw this: a demo of CIBC PC Banking will let you use the system without having an account.

I use the CIBC secure online banking without a problem with Netscape 4.7(?(current Linux Version..)) on Linux without fail. The service is terrific. You register bills and pay them online (without any trouble - I recently registered "University of Windsor" as the 'bill' and put in "studentnumberhere" as 'account' to register UofW and paid my tuition. Terrific.), you can also post date payment (so you pay your Visa bills on time - about 12 hours before they are due. :)

I would recommend it. Its free - and you never have to a bank again. Mostly.