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Online Banking And Browser Support
robbo writes "Earlier this week, The Register ran a piece on major UK banks and E-commerce sites' refusal to support alternative browsers for online banking, and they followed up with a list of saints and sinners. The reasons vary from requiring support for proprietary technology to security. My own bank only recently started supporting Netscape 6 (but they still don't support Mozilla). Clearly, support for Mozilla, Konqueror, or Galeon are absolutely necessary if projects like GNUCash can successfully integrate online banking. How does the Slashdot crowd find their banking support? Is your bank a sinner or a saint?"
i never had a problem with washington mutual
I hesitate to call any bank a Saint, but in at least this one regard, First Citizens are more Saint than Sinner.
// TODO: Insert Cool Sig
2 years ago Wells Fargo had an issue with the latest Netscape, but aside from that they've supported every Mozilla I've ever used.
Sig!
Kudos to Nationwide (UK Building Society), whose online banking site I've successfully used with Mozilla and Konqueror (3.0) as well as IE. Everything seems to work as it should.
To be fair, it's probably not the Banks etc that set the terms to limit the browsers that access their sites. It's lazy developers, which are almost certainly web-dev companies trying to complete a project that they've managed to land by bidding low.
;-)
I've been guilty of it in the past - having to rush out a project, and not taking the time to test on every browser across every platform. The "IE only" disclaimer is an excuse for the most part.
It's worth complaining to the company though, especially if you mention they're being ridiculed on a number of extremely popular tech news sites
Code, Hardware, stuff like that.
Things will only change if you actually do something about it. I *always* complain if I have the time, I will mail the webmaster and point out that there is an HTML standard, point them at a dodgy validation of their site via validator.w3.org, and point out that they lose money, one way or another.
So get off your ass, knock up a form letter, keep it handy, and complain!
The future is partly in your hands.
Note to ACs: I won't mod you up, even if you are being funny or insightful. So take a chance! It's not real life!
According to the same article, Chase Manhattan's online web client has serious problems with stability, security and breaches of privacy as well as a severe lack of open standards at almost every level of the implementation.
Having used it, I can vouch that this is true. The GUI is exclusively ActiveX, which works only on some versions of IE. I have to assume there is some windows web/db system driving the backend, at least in front of the mainframe (or whatever is holding the real bank records).
And it seems this is rather common among bank clients, even among smaller banks and credit unions. On three bank sites I looked at recently, two explicitly stated that IE was necessary, and on the third it was implied.
What about Opera masquerading as IE or netscape?
Capital One determines the browser using JavaScript, not the UA header. Unfortunately overriding the UA string does not override what JavaScript returns. And the site of course doesn't work at all w/o JS...
It was enough to cancel my card...
NGWave - Fast Sound Editor for Windows
And I use Royal Bank.. their site supports everything I've tried. I was so amazed I sent their tech support an email about how great it was to be able to use Konqueror to do my banking.
Their site works fine with Galeon, Mozilla, and IE. I haven't tried Konqueror. Online banking in Canada is part of most account packages (there are no extra fees just for online banking). An online transaction is counted as a transaction towards your regularly allowed number of transactions (which could be unlimited if you keep a certain minimum).
Corporate Gadfly
Jonathan Archer: the most beaten up Enterprise captain in Star Trek history
http://www.tdcanadatrust.com/
I've had no trouble with Mozilla and TD's Easyweb service. Pay bills, transfer money, etc. Nice clean layout too.
Might be useful: user-agent masquerading in a simple to use toolbar for mozilla
python -c "x='python -c %sx=%s; print x%%(chr(34),repr(x),chr(34))%s'; print x%(chr(34),repr(x),chr(34))"
groan
this article does not "proliferate" any problem.
IE is installed by default on 95% of computers sold today. IE is the only browser that most of the population even knows exists. It is the only browser that an overwhelming majority of the population use. It is a standard. just be cause you like it, doesn't mean that it's not the standard.
Opera is referred to as an alternative browser, because, (GASP!) it IS an alternative.
oh, and please don't turn this around into an argument on how IE got to be the browser installed on 95% of all computers. that's an entirely different can of worms.
Banco do Brasil supports Mozilla/Netscape.
They have implemented a java based 'virtual keyboard' a while ago and this broke mozilla support. Then, when java 1.4 was out, every thing was back to normal. I could use on-line banking from anywhere again.
\m/
DLJDirect -> CSFBDirect -> harrisdirect.com my broker...
If you can keep up with thier constant buyouts and name changing, they were always really responsive. I complained that their navbar had flaky javascript on it that was totally unnecessary, and in a week it was gone. Other than that, they always were very compatible with any browser I wanted to use, which is pretty nice considering it's a pretty complex online trading platform.
firstunion.com....
Sometimes good, sometimes bad... They change their code so often, it's a tossup as to whether your browser will make it past the signin screen. I've mostly had problems logging in, if I can get logged in, things usually work fine. One thing that is bad is if you don't set your browser to auto-accept all cookies, the site will constantly screw your session up, even if you manually accept the cookies. At least it used to. As I said, they change their code a lot.
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
Someone has already made a much better chart of how various Linux browsers do at various banks around the world. Check out the site.
The chart lists 302 banks in 32 countries and indicates whether someone has reported success with Netscape 4, Netscape 6/7, Mozilla, Galeon, Konquerer 2, Konqueror 3, Opera, and Elinks.
Help him fill in the chart if you have info on an unlisted bank or on a browser for a listed bank by e-mailing Evan
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My bank supports pretty much any browser, as long as it can handle an ssl connection. However, I know that csbc wasn't supporting mozilla about half a year ago, don't know how it is now (probably the same).
And really, there I can't see any reason why some browsers would not be allowed to use the online system. I mean I understand that they might design the site with IE in mind, but why not just say something like "Use whatever you like, that has ssl, but we won't offer technical support to anything but IE" and put one of those ugly "best viewed with Internet Explorer" banners?
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I have to add kudos to NetBank too. MSIE6 works fine (duh!) and so does IE for the Mac along with OmniWeb. No support for Lynx though.
When I repatriated last year, retail banks didn't want my account due to a lack of banking history. NetBank was fast, efficient, and gives great rates.
My only complaint is that you cannot see deposit advices ahead of time, which is something my company does. Must be a batch system in the back for transaction history.
6/10 to LloydsTSB.
E*Trade bank's website works great in Mozilla. They also pay interest on checking accounts, reimburse you for ATM fees, refill your checks for free, and offer free online bill pay. (All the above requires a min. balance of $5000). Highly recommended!
my bank, suntrust, is somewhere in between. it leans toward the saintly side because the entire actual online banking system works perfectly on mozilla, but their website itself gives a message saying that browsers of the netscape 6/mozilla family aren't supported (netscape 4.* is supported). i'm not sure why this is.
it seems to me that it would be easier to make the company's website compatible across the board than it would to do the same for the complex system for managing accounts. oh well. i'm a satisfied with it anyway.
"I just want to thank my coach Eric a.k.a. Disco for shattering my reality..."
i'll add another check in the positive column for netbank. they always have worked with whatever browser i ever tried it with. i'm currently using galeon with javascript turned off and it still their site still works!
my only complaint is that i get a little more spam from netbank than i would like. too many 'refinance you mortgage' or type emails. but other than that netbank is great.
"Can you explain to me exactly which advanced functionality your bank need to use to make their site work that hasn't been there since HTML 1.0?"
Have you not read the HTML standards? HTML 1.0 didn't support anything but basic hyperlinking and the <PRE> tag. See here for more details. HTML 1.0 didn't support tables, forms, frames, etc. (Warning: Link is extremely dated.)
As I said earlier, I code my pages to the XHTML 1.0 standard. That means that Netscape 4.x won't render them properly, as Netscape 4 relies on a number of non-standard HTML tags and attributes (marginwidth, marginheight, height, etc.) In fact, Netscape 4 is so buggy when it comes to CSS that there are whole pages dedicated to its bugginess. (Search Google for more.)
Moral of the story: Code your pages to standards, and make sure they work in IE 5.0, 5.5, and 6.0. Beyond that, it's up to each individual web developer.
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I wasn't able to use Galeon with Citibank a couple months ago. But I called and complained, and now it works just fine.
And they say you can't fight city hall...
Unix: Where
"What about Opera masquerading as IE or netscape?"
:)
It doesn't really work. US Bank pulled a similar stunt with regard to their browsers. I had to use IE to get into my account, and that bothered me.
Here is what I did: I sent them a polite e-mail explaining that I work between Linux and Windows and the common browser (I use) between them is Opera. It is a well respected browser and I find it a bit painful to move to another browser just to use their site. They sent me an e-mail back saying they were getting a lot of requests like that and that they were looking into fixing it.
And they did. I can now use Opera at US Bank and all I get is a warning saying "this isn't a recommended browser, so it's yo fault." Heh.
So my advice to anybody who wants to contact their bank about this: Be polite. Don't make it sound like it's the end of the world. Don't make it sound like they're evil or stupid. Just politely explain your situation. You may or may not change any minds anywhere, but I guarantee you that if you get shitty with them you won't be heard.
I've found several sites of late, including a bank, that refuse anything other than IE on the grounds that they don't have time to validate other browsers.
:-)
That's all well and good, but it turns out that most stuff works with non-IE browsers -- you just have to get the site to deliver the content to you.
With Mozilla, you can edit prefs.js to fool the site, with a line like this:
user_pref("general.useragent.override", "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 5.0; Wind
ows 98; DigExt)");
Works like a charm, and a surprisingly large number of supposedly IE-only sites start working fine.
Ditto here, had SFNB, they were great, but then RBC wanted outrageous fees, even charging me not only the now-extra monthly fee merely to have an account, but an extra monthly fee (I think $12 or so!) to pay bills online. I oculd not believe that they would charge me $12 to NOT write paper checks. Found Netbank and have been 90% happy ever since. I do wish they would send email status updates of received snail mail deposits (received, cleared).
Infuriate left and right
The only bad thing is that if you install a new Mozilla and install PrefBar again, it overwrites your PrefBar settings. You need to find the prefbar.rdf file (that contains your customized settings) in your Mozilla profile folder and make a backup somewhere so you can copy it back after new installations.
I have been a Wells Fargo Bank (WFB) customer for over 20 years. WFB has web-based online banking as well as banking via MSMoney and Quicken. WFB has been very good at supporting alternate browsers. I currently use Mozilla 1.01 on Win2K; WFB likes it well. I have also used Netscape 4.79 (when it was new) with WFB.
I believe the folks at Netscape/Mozilla have an in at WFB and make sure that their browsers are recognized and work with WFB.
It works for me.
I am not aware of any NZ bank that fails to work with Mozilla. Victoria University's computer department works almost exclusively with NetBSD boxes running KDE3, and I have frequently accessed my National Bank account with Mozilla, none of my friends have problems with different banks either.
:)
Pitty NZ fees are high (compared to the UK), but since I have a tertiary account I have no fees
--sitharus
You can set the _JavaScript_ UserAgent string in Mozilla. On one site that requires Windows browsers, this string works for me:
user_pref("general.useragent.override", "Mozilla/5.0 Galeon/1.2.0 (X11; Linux i686; U;) Gecko/20020326 (compatible; MSIE 8.0; Windows MUSTDIE)");
Try US Bank. I haven't interacted with a real person to deal with my accounts for months. My checking is the only account with ATM access.
I don't have a morgage yet, so the only important non-transfer transaction is the purchase of CD's for me. I generally do this from whoever has the best interest rate at the time of purchase, and don't worry about them till it's time to cash.
When I get a morgage I imagine I will set up an automatic bill pay in order to pay it off inside of 10 years or so, which would require no interaction from me after I set it up.
In short, being able to pay my credit card every few days from either banking account while rebalancing my checkbook does simplify the finances quite a bit, in fact I can't imagine doing them any other way again.
I live in a giant bucket.