Slashdot Mirror
Citifi.com Denies Alternate Browser Access
Mr. Magoo writes "Citifi.com, CitiBank's new financial services portal, is the latest big web site non-Windows users can't access." When I view the site with Netscape under Windows, I get a marketing blurb that says 'Become a Citi f/i customer and enjoy the convenience of being able to bank, invest, and pay bills 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, from any PC that's connected to the Internet.' Tried it with Netscape 4.05 and M12 under Linux, and I get no dice. Lynx 2.82rel.1+ssl under Linux seems okay, though. It seems we've got another poor-web-design victim.
Well, why bother to have a phone number for complaints if you don't plan to man it properly?
If _they_ can't find someone to help you, would you want to put your money in a bank that can't even get decent help internally? Hahehehaha. I sure wouldn't.
Err... If you reread this several times, above posters, you'll realize he wasn't saying more affluent people used IE. He was saying that CitiBank probably wasn't aware of their error, as it is hard to imagine anyone would believe that richer people used IE.
The solution has to be better than that. How do you get a manager to compromise on features because some browsers support them and some don't - especially when most managers don't relise that there's actually more than one brower, 'cause, hey, there's one Word 97.
The problem with CSS is that none of the major browsers correctly implement even CSS1, which has been a standard since 1997.
There are two general classes of problem:
1. Simple non-compliance. Take a look at the w3c style sheet "acid test" in whatever browser you are using. Unless it is M12, it will probably be wrong. I've tested this on:
- IE5
- Netscape 4.7
- Opera 3.61
- Amaya 2.4 (!)
- Mozilla M12
all on NT.2. Worse, at least NS 4.* has a implementation so buggy that styles often crash the browser.
One may say that browsers will be forced to follow, but try doing that now in a real-world commercial situation. "Sorry, dear client, but since we are big on style sheets, we are going to build your site such that only users of a pre-alpha browser will be able to properly view it. Oh, and yeah, about 30% of your visitors browsers are going to crash while visiting your site."
"Why? oh, because we think that your web site should perform a public service, even if it means you lose business and visitors. But just you wait until the browsers catch up!"
CSS works a lot better in intranet setups. That's what I have our corporate intranet using, because we have influence over the browsers used on the network and understand that things are going to look somewhat different in IE/NS/Opera/M12. Plus, we understand (unlike clients, god bless them) that CSS will, eventually, work, and that we will benefit from having plenty of internal experience. But that won't be for a while.
and
I'm aware of these, but my point is that if you use the <BR> tag to break a line in the middle of a paragraph or <NOBR> to prevent a line break makes things go screwey in some cases. I've also tried replacing normal spaces with tags, but the end result is still not what I'd like. The other last resort I've used before is to use <PRE> in conjuntion with Style Sheets, but again, it's not the best answer.
The problem is that in most cases, we're not talking about blocks of poetry or stuff that will more or less look the same in any browser. I'm talking about paragraphs, where the man decides he wants the line to break at word X instead of word Y. Well, that's all well and good if it's gonna be viewed on Win boxes with IE, but what about somebody who checks it out on a Mac or a UNIX box? The differences in font rendering and sizes will make the line break in some unusual place . . . maybe 2/3 of the way through, maybe 1/3, depending on where you use the tags (this is with the exception of <PRE> of course).
And, as nice as CSS is, it doesn't solve the problem of different font rendering on different platforms. The point I'd like to get across is that creating documents / web sites with HTML will never be a precision process like creating a flyer in Pagemaker or Quark, at least any time in the near future.
For whatever reason it doesn't work for Macintosh Internet Explorer, and it does for Mac Netscape. I have no plans to use this site, but if I did, I would ask that they support my browser of choice, unless they had a damn good reason.
You might try reading the story posted. Netscape can get through so long as it is on windows . Frankly, there is no justifiable reason to block out non-windows systems on the web. Platform independance is a feature of the internet.
Yes, say "Ahem. Excuse me, micros~1 scum, but I would like to bring to your attention that micros~1 sux and liux rulez! Thank you. Have a nice day!"
The great thing is, there is always another site that is not so ignorant, and they get my business. What the all-cookies-all-the-time-site gets is an email telling them how misguided they are and the dollar amount that I spent at their non-cookie competitor.
Please do be polite, after all, "you catch more flies with honey" et al...
I find I catch more flies with shit.
Honey only attracts ants and bees, mostly.
Turn away millions of what? Zealots with their Dungeons and Dragons piggy-bank that you had to smash open with a Nerf hammer?
If you are a person that whines and complains about this kind of insignificant problem, then you are not resourceful and self-reliant enough to make enough money to put into their bank. Go cash your government handout at the grovery store and spend it on lottery tickets.
You're welcome... Just a dumb little pet peeve of mine. :) How come I don't get no "Informative" points for that? :( hehe..
Instead, you could also just install the new root certificates from Verisign and Thawte, and continue using the old browser.
-------
Warning: Slashdot may contain traces of nuts.
Nevertheless the correct English spelling is "denies".
:)
Funny thing about languages... They tend to _manipulate_ things for their own purposes, not always true to their roots.
...plan to overthrow the Linux kernel by non-user-level means?
Moral: big money uses Netscape.
;^) So is this not an example of the modern corporation? I haven't seen another since the pre-browser wars time....
Heh... Maybe on Wall Street. What I see (I work for a subsidiary of a very large multi-national financial institution) completely contradicts that. 85% of the entire corporation is running on Microsoft operating systems. About 14% running NetWare (that's about 90% of our server population) and the remaining 1% can account for the various others such as AS400, Unix, and OS/2 (sigh... nearly gone).
Btw, there was a memo, about a year ago, maybe less, explicitly banning any and all forms of Linux from the company. Use of it on a company system/network is grounds for termination.
So what browser do we use internally? Both. With a solid preference for IE.
Face it, it works, it's simple to use, and it's not ugly.
---
Dr. Trevorkian
So, the question is; How do we inform computer illiterate managers that the Web is a collaberative community of standards, rather than a dictatorship governed by high school bully tactics?
My indirect reply:
I have the doubtful good fortune of being one of the people whose job it is to translate between the wishes of managers and the work of development staff. I'm the one who either has to persuade the managers that what they said is a really bad idea and shouldn't be passed on, or I have to take that message and go to the developers and try to negotiate a solution that is both possible and accomplishes what they want.
I run into the situation that you're describing a lot-- particularly with cross-browser and standards issues-- and I've won a lot of those battles on the behalf of open (at least relatively open) standards-- but I think we need to look at how you're framing your question here.
Managers are illiterate about computers. Often about Internet. Very true. They do, however, understand their own business. You need to ask them to care about things like usability across multiple platforms and open standards because, and only because, it impacts their business. If you talk to them about community standards and collaboration and Internet history their eyes are going to glaze over and roll back in their heads. And why shouldn't they? Do you care about every issue in every field of every portion of life that impacts your core business? Would you stand around wanting to debate the relative merits of--oh, I don't know-- plastic formation methods just because your keyboard is made of plastic? No. (Unless you're hopelessly eclectic) You'd want to know what difference it makes to you and whether you should care about it in buying keyboards.
Managers are precisely the same. If you tell them that they should make their website accessible to all browsers because it isn't fair or violates good design standards or whatever, that's going to mean nothing to them. If you take the same situation and use arguments relating the issue to their website, however, that will (generally) sink in. For instance, I frequently discuss how unstable the browser market in general is and how features can differ from even one version of a browser to the next-- so some cool proprietary gimmick they want to use may not be implemented in the next. That leads to the inevitable question. "Surely there are safe features?" I then talk about standards and their purpose.
Generally there's a problem because they've got some home-grown genious working for them who learned how to build web pages with Front Page and couldn't write good code if his life depended on it and is in love with some plug-in dependent navigation element. He or the boss will object that it's 'too difficult' to write code that will work everywhere. I then will sit down with the manager and do the cost figures with them about what it would cost in time and manpower to do it properly now versus what it would cost them to redo completely should their mistakes this time make it necessary. That comparison generally hits home rather close to where it really hurts.
Above all, if you want to communicate good practice to management and non-IT people in general, be patient, try to understand their point of view of the matter, and don't assume they're stupid people just because they're stupid about computers.
Gee, this was really long...
Because the snark was a...
Agreed. The only thing you can portably do is specify table cell widths (in percentages) that happen to break the paragraph in the appropriate place on the most common resolution.
HTML and CSS trade the precise control of a DTP program for portability, and I expect they will always make some tradeoff. If you must have a specific layout, try PDF.
As for fonts, you can always try Trudoc (www.trudoc.com). It's a portable font standard that comes with Netscape, and there's a (tiny) ActiveX control for IE. It's the closest we'll come to a standard for a while. . .
Yup, they basically REQUIRE you enable JavaScript to get anywhere. When you look at the pages, it's clear that they are just too stupid or lazy to do it properly and portably.
h |blah
Basically, it looks like they are gluing the URL together on the client side with JS based on what you want to do. So, you request something like
/cgi-bin/bank.cgi?account|subaccount|action|bla
That's right, it's all a bunch of crap with pipes separating it. If they used "normal" form submission, they could just POST all that stuff over HTTPS into a similar program and on THEIR end.
What's more, these lamers also use JS to perform stupid little redirections. Rather than just linking to the right URL or using *HTTP level* redirects, or (god forbid) "meta refresh" redirects, they do it in JavaScript! DUH!
Come see the mess for yourself...
Is there such windows braille reader software out there? (I just wonder, I can see just fine). It would be nice to be able to say "But you can _only_ do _this_ in lynx." and really mean it. :-)
Trust me, they know. They were getting complaints from their Linux users earlier this month and called us up. Being affiliated with linux.com we're used to getting questions like this.
She explained that their Linux customers could not view citifi.com and wondered why. So I opened up a browser and was suprised to find the "Your Operating System" message. I explained to her that this was a limitation imposed by their web designers and asked if there was something on the page that would prevent linux from viewing it.
No, she wasn't aware of anything specific but inquired about javascript support in Linux. I said I'd do some research and get back to her, and politely asked to have their web designers call to resolve any problems. I sent her a link on Netscape and java/javascript but havn't heard anything back since...
If you'd like a contact in the company to send *polite* inquiries to, send me an email.
I think people who decide to switch to linux should just take what they get and not complain.
You can think whatever you like, but I am free to complain and I will do so if I choose.
They Chose to change OS's and if someone has a service for windows, then too bad. Don't complain! Accept it.
What's with your arrogant attitude of trying to tell other people not to complain and to "accept it". Whether or not I choose to speak out against something is my choice, not yours. Maybe people don't have manners in wherever you're from and it's accepted for people to push others around and tell them what to do, but among the people I know it's not acceptable to tell others what to do and think. Especially in such an ill-mannered way.
Don't make everyone cater to your needs.
We can't make anyone cater to our needs. But we have the option of asking sites to support certain basic standards, and many of us will continue to do so.
babies.
Yes, I can see that your mentality is obviously far more mature than anyone else's...
BTW, no one is forcing you to read the story. If you have nothing to add to the discussion, feel free to go elsewhere.
I just called the 1-800 number to express my concern over their site's practices. The gentleman I spoke to said that just in the last half-hour he had spoken to five others calling about the exclusion of all other operating systems than Windows and MacOS and using only IE and, to some extent, Netscape.
As was stated here before, about keeping a calm demeanor and stating things in a professional manner, I explained to him that even if they decide to include Linux, this will not solve the problem. They must make it so that the connecting browser has the appropriate security layers. I explained that there are many OS's out there (Linux, *BSD, Solaris, Irix, BeOS) and more than two browsers (Opera, Lynx).
He stated that the "problem" is being worked on, and that those interested in their services check back in the coming week(s).
Hmm... Maybe they should make use of one of the many available HTML VALIDATORS. Crappy HTML is no excuse for anything.
A browser should not silently render a broken page.
How do you expect us to overreact if we are actually paying attention to what others say.
What kind of zealots would we be if we did that?
I think people who decide to switch to linux should just take what they get and not complain. They Chose to change OS's and if someone has a service for windows, then too bad. Don't complain! Accept it. Don't make everyone cater to your needs. babies.
Why should we allow them to pervert our ideas? We made those protocols, formats ansd servers, so it's our right to annoy the hell out of marketdroid slime that abuses it until they will comply. Who the hell are you and why you think that we should not do that?
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
When did we get all these language experts around here? I can't tell what's BS from what's not. Although... it would be quite funny if someone started correcting all the "spell correctly!" people with believable BS. Who cares about *ically correct, the point of language is to communicate, and I think one or two typos are forgivable(heck there are probably 5+ in my post).
============================
We have been informed by Netscape and VeriSign? that the Digital Certificates** contained in Netscape Navigator? and Netscape? Communicator browsers with version numbers of 4.08 or below are about to expire. In order to maintain the highest level of security, many secure sites, require a current certificate when establishing a connection.
A browser upgrade to Netscape Navigator or Netscape Communicator 4.5 or higher, or conversion to Microsoft? Internet Explorer 4.01 or higher (Apple Macintosh? users must use version 4.5 or higher) will automatically update this certificate. If you do not upgrade to Netscape Navigator or Netscape Communicator 4.5 or higher, or convert to Microsoft Internet Explorer by December 31, 1999, you may no longer be able to connect to any secure site on the Internet, including Suretrade. We will not support earlier versions of these browsers after this date.
PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS IS NOT A YEAR 2000 ISSUE.
To ensure uninterrupted service to Suretrade and other secure web sites please follow the directions below.
========================
(instructions for upgrading followed....)
Netscape 4.05 is not compliant, and it's my understanding that Mozilla M12 doesn't yet have a valid digital security certificate authentication in place yet. I could be wrong.
I think this particular problem is someone getting all freaked out over nothing. Note that the Lynx connection with SSL works fine.
IS THIS REALLY POOR WEB DESIGN?
They should be refusing accounts from these soon-to-be-useless-to-connect-to-secure-sites browsers unless they want a whole bunch of tech support calls on or soon after Jan 1, 2000!
...given how poorly Netscape has implemented CSS so far -- remember CSS? It was supposed to take the style out of HTML and make it possible to write a single webpage that'd satisfy all browsers, from Lynx on upward? -- I would never and could never blame anyone for giving up and banning it from their site.
It's a real shame that the W3C standards haven't been followed, along with ECMAScript. If the damned browsers would only render absolutely to-spec, then it'd make all webauthor's jobs easier, make all webpages far more cross-platform compatible, support speech- and whatever-based browsers, and so on.
And they'd *STILL* be able to have fancy, stylistic sites. HTML for the content and high-level structure; CSS for the styles. Gahd, that'd be nice.
But, no, Netscape went and balled it up on CSS; Netscape and MSIE both balled it up on HTML; Opera has balled it up on the ECMAScript. Gah.
--
Don't like it? Respond with words, not karma.
Better yet, swap the managers computer for one running MSDOS using NCSA Telnet to connect to your Linux box. Add a "sweet" vt-100 menu to the login scripts, and boom... Instant Lynx... And THEN ask the Manager to use the site.
If he can't even get past the front page on the site he force fed you design for, well, maybe he'll see things differently. If not, and the manager is in the states, remind him about what the ADA thinks of sites that won't work well in text only (blind readable) modes. A bank should be worried, since (most) disabled Americans still have no trouble banking. If the shock doesn't do it, the possibility of being sued will. >:)
Then you don't even need 6 machines... >;-)
(BTW: I know that screen reader type software for windows, etc... exists, but, hey, even if one blind American uses lynx and sues, they might win due to PC pressure... )
I said that I doubted that there were "all that many [in comparision]," not that Netscape didn't have any affluent users.
Look at it this way: out of all the operating systems for which IE isn't available natively, the two most popular ones on which a person would be trying to connect to this bank's site would probably be Linux users and BSD users. And aside from the folks who struck it rich on the Linux IPOs, you're not exactly looking at a demographic flush with financial success.
Cheers,
ZicoKnows@hotmail.com
Here's a correlation-buster for ya: Wall Street. Investment banks, hedge funds, brokerage houses. Trading desks. Running on Solaris systems. Browser: Netscape.
I worked there. I talked to people. Yes there are some NT shops, but even the travelling techs from Bloomberg/Bridge will tell you that the serious shops aren't on Windows.
Moral: big money uses Netscape.
"Cause there's 40 different shades of black, so many fortresses and ways to attack, so why you complainin'?"
And I'll keep using Linux while you're waiting the 2 1/2 minutes or so it takes W2K to boot up, not to mention reinstalling every six months ( no, this still hasn't been fixed ).
The only reason this comment still has a score of 0 is that /. thinks irony means "kind of like iron".
I don't know. All this talk of changing banks might convince people that there are "free markets" and "invisible hands" and all this nonsense, and then these Linux support problems will disappear because it's good business sense.
Instead, we must continually focus on our goddamned Constitutional right to use anything we want to do anything we want on the Internet, including SSL over a Dixie-cup-and-string connection, if Linux runs on it. That way, the Linux support problems will disappear because any evil corporate slimy stinky giant who would take away our goddamned Constitutional right would probably kick puppies and rape nuns, too.
Therefore, you support them. They're still get your money.
Hello? Are you stupid? Opera for Windows is a great browser. It even sticks to HTML standards!
I'm posting this using Opera 3.61, and I haven't a single problem with it.
Braindead pro-MS suckers who base their opinions on FUD rather than facts are rather annoying...
What you forget is that on the web, the image IS everything. If you are a company on the web, no one knows anything about you except for your web page. You can be the little guy, but if you have the biggest and best page around, people will assume you are the top dog of the industry. Yes, in theory every web page should work in every browser, on every OS, but in reality, it just doesn't work that way. Most company web sites are nothing but a big ad, and in that case, image IS everything. Most people care less about the information than they do about about the "image" it portrays.
"Information wants to be expensive" - Stewart Brand, the same guy who said "Information wants to be free"
My sizable and affluent big ass just got off the phone with the citisite folks. They have been getting calls all day- the current blurb is that the site has to be "certified" for use by the linux operating system on the web, and that they were working on it.
I also asked them to include the BeOS and the *BSDs in this as well. Apparently, they have just been getting calls from us linux zealots.
I then struck up a conversation with the support person about some of the security issues of the OS's that ship out of Redmond, WA. Seems they didn't know about several issues surrounding security on the user end (at least, she didn't have any support docs to check about that on her end). I asked her to forward that as an issue as well- the lack of support knowledge, I mean
As for affluence, you might want to check out information on the linuxfund.org site about their signature credit card. Apparently, the bank that they work with on approvals says that applicants were surprisingly affluent, or something like that.
01000101
if Netscape didn't suck so bad.
Don't worry about Citicorp's webmaster. Send email, or better phone, a customer service rep and tell them you are interested in their services, but you are not willing to get a different computer (don't confuse them with OSes). Explain that your computer is not Windows, but it works fine with every other bank.
Just tried this from my solaris box. no dice. That's not a smart move. boycott.
Hi, I use OS/2 Warp 4 90% of the time,with Netscape Navigator 4.61. Rest of the time i use Redhat Linux 6.1 with Netscape Navigator 4.51. Most sites allow me to view them. Those that limit acces to certain OS or web browser i don't visit,don't give them my business so they'll lose customers,money. I also write web pages and know that each browser reports its name,version number and operating system it's running on to all sites it connects to. This info is in the browsers ini file and can be manually edited,since it's a text file. You can change ti to report whatever browser,version number and operating system you want your visited site to think. If you really want to get connected to citifi.com try this,but i avoid sites that by design don't want me. Why would i want them ? In a year or two most new computers might have Linux installed. Will they then allow only Linux and disallow Windows access ? Their thinking is stupid,illogical,against bussiness,they only make enemys,lose business.
The worst part about this is that I'm a spelling maniac. My grade-school English teachers used to just pit the entire class against me in the spelling bees, because I used to win every single week. I placed fifth in my regional Scripps-Howard spelling bee. Of course, second post to Slashdot, and my skills hit the fan. Thanks for pointing out the error; it's fixed now.
The number listed "if you have any questions" is 1-800-2-CITIFI (1-800-224-8434). Call up and ask if they realize they're cutting out a sizable (and affluent) demographic with their browser-restricted design.
why care about this ?
nobody forces anybody to use their crappy site !?
ZDNet kind of started the thing, but run a few of their pages through any validator or check out the site in Mozilla. Crap city!
Hey there. While I tested the site with Linux, It *also* won't render on a Mac using Internet Explorer, or any other OS/browser combination other than the ones it mentions on the site. This is not a Linux problem, this is a poor web design problem, and you've clearly missed the point.
Two quick solutions.
1) Direct non compatible browsers to a page explaining that all complaints should be sent to the email address of your boss.
2) Explain to your PHB that at this very moment there is a person on webtv, cell phone, palm pilot who is trying to access your site and can't and in the future when he is trying to access the page from his car or toaster he will not be able to either.
War is necrophilia.
Hey guys, it looks like this problem is everywhere. My grandmother just put up a site to show her recipes for cookies that she gives to orphans. Not only that, the damn site doesn't support Netscape 2.x OR Quicken for Windows 3.11!
Dudes its time for some serious hacking. Get her.
I've also got some rumours of a Lisa Loeb fan page that won't let any small mouth bass view the site. That's only a rumour right now though, let's not get all worked up over nothing.
Hotnutz.com
The root certs shipped with IE4.5 for Macintosh also expire tonight. We just found out at work the beginning of this week. We were waiting all week for the other shoe to drop and find out IE4 or 5 was the same way.
Phonetics has nothing to do with the spelling of the word. The word "denyspectis" isn't and never was Greek; the Greek letter Omicron does not even appear in "the original word" - it is the equivalent of "o". Where do these self-proclaimed experts come from? (S)He'll be telling us we're in the 21st century next!
Part of the beauty of the web is that it is so platform neutral. I hate to see this changing!
Yes, good point. Maybe talking to the webmaster doesn't do much good in many cases. But please, do note that, as has been pointed out already, this site works fine with at least one Linux browser, lynx with ssl patch, so it doesn't seem as though it's a windows-only site, just that they are banning what they believe to be insecure browsers.
It's a little hard to believe that there are all that many affluent people who would be using Netscape, compared to those who use Internet Explorer.
Cheers,
ZicoKnows@hotmail.com
The article says that Lynx works (with SSL). Is the original submitor certain that his Netscape has been Fortified? Does ->Help ->About_Netscape show U.S. grade RSA?
How is it that *Lynx* works?
BTW, web banking at my bank (The TD Bank of Canada) works perfectly with Netscape/Linux, despite the fact that it's not officially supported. But you *must* Fortify it. TD's security standards will buzz you off if you try it with export-grade encryption.
-- Mike Greaves
Has anybody got Internet Explorer on HP/UX or Solaris? Try the site and see if you can get in... from that we can see if they're actively searching the user agent info for Netscape and Linux (or Unix).
Oh, and for god's sake don't DoS the server. We don't want to look like zealous fools; we just want to polietly telling them they're cutting out possible market share.
Though of course, the obligatory Che quote:
Someone probably left out a /TABLE tag or put a FORM tag in the wrong place.. Netscape usually decides not to draw the page..
_______
2B1ASK1
.
I know, I know, dual boot, etc - but then there's the problem when I show that what I've designed only works on 1 in 6 and the manager has a friend at some other company who he's convinced have a wonderful web page that works perfectly. What's wrong with me? The fact that the other page is probably a disaster area (or a mock up) is completely beyond them. Or maybe we payed $20,000 for our product and we have a team of me, where the other company spent $2,000,000 and have a team larger than my entire company.
I know I'm whinging, but I could really do with some ideas on how to educate the luddite decisions makers on the rules and netticate of the Web.
Turn on cookies and go to www.citifi.com and you'll get the lame "We dont support anything but windows or macos, go away" message. Then click on "About Citifi" at the bottom, suddenly you get access to the navigation bar at the left, and the one at the top right, which offers you to check out their entire website, INCLUDING:
A Home link which takes you to their main page
A Products and Services page
A Signup to be come a new member page
And to even "sign in" to your account
(Direct Links not included because their site runs on https with cookies and it seems without seeing the "disclamer" that your OS isn't supported, it does not work.)
And more, it looks like you can navagate the ENTIRE page REGARDLESS that it says you're unsupported.
So the 64 thousand dollar question is.....
Why have the disclamer that non-Windows and non-MacOS users are unsupported if they can, even with the disclamer page, navigate the entire site?
-- iCEBaLM
My bank (in Canada - mbanx and Bank of Montreal) offers online banking trading etc that requires SSL and I've used netscape on linux and freebsd with their site since version 3.0 (they now require version 4+ due to javascript and toerh java crap).
It is an issue for the banks going forward which they are silly to ignore. If they support standards it's EASIER for them to adapt to changing consumers.
There will likely be a lot more people banking from phone screens and handhelds (like an SSL lynx on your cell connected PalmOS) and completely non-GUI VUI's (voice user interface) devices (to say nothing of blind user interfaces etc etc) in the future why not be ready for them. These firms are saying loud and clear:
"Hi we DO NOT want you business - ever. Go away now. There are only 10, 15 , 20 million Mac,BeOS,Unix users out there and we willing give you up to our competitors. The expense of changing our web site (50$ an hour) is simply too high compared with the measly amount revenue in the form of mortgages, insurance purchases, online stock trading any of you will ever do".
They also want me to believe they are high tech, high security, on line financial powerhouses but they don't know how to design a website ... hmm.
z.
I also offered to fix the site for them for 25$ an hour :-D
go fuck yourself you festering whore!
Don't worry, when linux is more popular than windoze, and you are complaining that your cheapass sound card won't work in windows, we'll all remind you that you said this.
BTW: I esspecially bookmarked your info page, just so I can do this. It'll be great when I get the chance. I'd love to see you not be able to use a bank because you are stuck on windows. Baby. I'll just say "Accept it". Or maybe "Charge it", instead. >:-)
First it was Fox, now it's Citicorp.
I personally do not think this as a case of "evil conspiracy". I think this is a case where big companies are employing clueless nincompoops to design webpages for them.
If we are to spread the goodnews of Linux, we must start by educating the big companies of our presence, and we must demonstrate our collective purchasing power since it is our money they are after, and if the big businesses can see that we represent a sizeable portion of their total business, then they will stop hiring those clueless nincompoops.
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
I've also got some rumours of a Lisa Loeb fan page that won't let any small mouth bass view the site.
That whiny bitch has always pissed me off from day one. Now we've got another reason to hate her.
If you're really curious.. Bank of America has worked for me, perfectly well. They do their thing with cookies and forms.. no scripting that I noticed.
DEDICATED TO LACEY CHABERT AND NATALIE PORTMAN
:) :) :(
Natalie Portman
First, she takes off her pants, then
I turn her to stone!
Natalie is stone!
Now she is my statue friend.
But the chaffing hurts.
Lacey Chabert's hot
Cripes, I've been arrested for
Statuetory rape
"Lacey, turn to stone!"
That is what I said to her
Now she is my rock
Chabert and Portman
As they kiss I transform them
I have two statues
Ha ha ha, I'm not the one who chose and OS for which IE is not available. I chose an OS for which IE is not UNAVAILABLE :)
Stoopid Windows, but I like it anyway. When you have a 450mHz pII, it almost seems fast....
I make pretty good money.
So do most of my peers.
Not ALL Linux users are fresh out of college, you know...
Deliberately denying users of alternative, non-windoze operating systems access to a web page is both an economic and political attack on the free software community. If we cannot do our on-line banking online, what is next? On-line purchasing via SSL. Online viewing of streaming video? Online viewing of XML (the purported replacement for HTML)? This is an economic and political battle which, if unfought, will result in all of us being coerced by simple necessity into using a platform we despise.
It is not only appropriate, it is essential that we respond in kind. Boycotting is just one means of doing this (close your citibank accounts, and make sure they know why you have done so). Educating your friends as to why this is matters is equally important -- and if you can talk them into voicing similar concerns to organizations which behave like this, so much the better.
Checkfree, for example, works flawlessly with 128 bit encryption under Linux and is "bank independent" though it does cost $10/month for the service. Still, it is one of many alternatives which are friendly (or at least not aggressively hostile) toward alternative platforms (Northern Trust of Chicago has free online banking which also works fine under Linux, and I suspect if you look around one or more of your local banks will be similar). I would suggest anyone interested in having Linux, *BSD, or any other non-Microsoft platform usable on the web of the future put their money where their mouths are and support companies which allow us to conduct our business on the platforms of our choice, using open standards with the tools of our choice. Any other approach means sacrificing your options for someone elses bottom line (guess who's in this case).
This doesn't make us "html" or "web" police, it makes us concerned consumers who won't allow our vendors to use coercive tactics in order to force us into using their strategic partners' inferior products in order to gain the "privelege" of using their services. Without us (the customers) they do not make money, and we should not be at all shy in using that leverage to our advantage.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
Unfortunately, this problem isn't confined to just the denial of service to non-Windows users. Why...just last week, I tried to download some software for my Linux box from work where I use IE (for later transfer to my Linux box).
.gz files are VRML.
:-)
Instead of gaining access to the "Open Sourced" source code, I was flatly rejected simply because I was using IE. It even went so far as to suggest I use another non-M$ browser and join the non-M$ browser revolution. I left the site with the intention to never to come back and feeling like I needed to look for the "colored" water fountain.
So, I left the site and went back to freshmeat looking for another alternative to what was on the other site. As I tried to download the gzipped file, IE5 launched the VRML browser. Seems it thinks that all
Took some time to whip my browser and force a registry scrubbing before it would leave my gzipped files alone.
So much for this "uppity" web surfer.
Can't we all just get along?
Until the world realizes that browser diversity is necessary, we might as well be back in the 20th century.
Happy New Year, Everyone! And, for those that believe its the new Millenium (see...another issue we can't all agree upon), "Happy 3rd Millenium".
Peace to all.
Yep. Not terribly surprised. Hey, everybody: the real action is on the back end. PHP, Java Servlets, MySQL. Stop playing around with client-side crap, and we won't have these sorts of problems.
Okay, I'll admit that my personal experiance probably isn't broad enough to support the "we're rich" theory but it's all I have to go on.
Linux users are often well paid IT professionals or students with a lot of earning potential. Blocking out the guys with strong technical skills will block out the guys with above average incomes. Blocking out the guys with high incomes is bad for business.
Letting them know about this is good for us and good for them.
Any thoughts?
That which does not kill me only makes me whinier
Windows' *only* advantage is its ubiquity. And only a putz would use something because it's popular.
Ahhh, I was quite bored, I'll admit. I just wanted to see if it was possible. If there really were people stupid enough to fall for what is such a simple trick.
:-)
Seems so.
I don't plan to try it again - once is enough.
Tell me where... if you can.
Well, if the sites works for lynx, what's the problem?! It probably looks fine under Netscape and Mozilla too, if you can hack them so that they id themselves as lynx (HTTP_USER_AGENT or whatever). I hope we are not going to see a spate of stories like this: "www.so-and-so.com doesn't work on my browser". I mean, get used to it, people. This happens all the time. If we had a story about it on slashdot every time, there wouldn't be room for anything else. If you want to do something a bit more constructive than whining on slashdot, check out the Campaign for a Non-Browser Specific WWW. Then, write to the webmaster of offending sites, let them know they're fucking up, and point them at that page.
The producer or WinNT ....
More monopolistic madness!
"Imagine a financial center with no walls..."
Bahhhahaha! ..it really is kinda funny when the opening page is a wall!
blah blah blah yea yea yea blah yea blah
_________________________
Well, the problem with your analogy is that your c-64 was released approxamately 17 years ago, and lacks most features that would be required to play a graphics intensive game, like q3. On the other hand, my os has what would be required to conduct secure transactions over the internet, in fact it is MORE secure than the first two OS's listed on their consolation page. And Zico, and his argument dissapear in a puff of logic.
_this is not a signature_
We'll forget that you were high and mighty about using Microsoft garbageware, and welcome you into the fold as a user of OSS software. Of course, you're free to stick with IE if you'd like, but it won't be our fault when you begin getting locked out of sites. Choice is important. I respect that.
The point (other than that this story is crap and shouldn't be on /. anyway) is that an incredibly high percentage of sights are viewable on all browsers -- it is the rare sight which is actually not usable due to browser or platform. To exclude a priori a large set of browsers is stupid (and reeks of gross mismanagement or being in bed with the monopolists). Eventually the shoe will be on another foot and the MS/IE arguments won't hold water for anyone else either.
"Cause there's 40 different shades of black, so many fortresses and ways to attack, so why you complainin'?"
So go off topic some more why don't ya?
why don't you join me?
They only support it in Windows though.
Citi f/i currently supports Windows 95, Windows 98, and Windows NT 4.0 running Netscape Navigator and Internet Explorer. It also supports Macintosh running Netscape Navigator only. If you need further assistance, please call 1-800-2-citifi.
Click here and access the site. The JavaScript trap is just on the front page.
I suspect it's just incompetent web design, since the back button doesn't work from the rude message page. J.
In that case these people have the ability to change the "surface look" presentation themselves. Is that the whole idea of the "web", that it is the viewer not the author who decides such things as the font size or pixel resolution? Surely there must be some way of persuading the PHBs that it in their intestersts for as many people as possible to be able to access their pages?
Screen reader software may exist for Windows(tm), but try running windows on a Braille terminal.
No of course not, you are just doomed to using a 2nd rate glitch filled junk browser...NUTSCRAPE really sucks, the screen writing is slow and glitchy, and it is constantly flashing the entire screen...I was not impressed with NUTSCRAPE under SOLARIS or LINUX......
Just some background first:
I've been doing some consulting work for Citibank for a bit now, and they are primarily a UNIX (AIX... Yuck!) & WinTel based shop.
Yes, the WWW's HTML interface is supposed to be 'platform independent' as much as possible, but it is not a requirement. Whatever CitiFi decides to do is what they feel is best at the current time under the restrictions and guidelines that have been defined by their management & HR.
Besides, presence on the WWW doesn't mean that you immediately have to support the dozens of OS's multiplied by the combinations of browsers by dropping your design to the lowest common denominator . There is a conscious choice of what OS's to support and what browsers to support for a specific reason: cost.
Where does the cost lay? Will it cost more to invest the man hours and machines into creating a web page 'for all platforms and browsers' while supplying a weaker web page (in their opinion) or will it cost more to specify the browser/machines and provide a higher class of web page?
Just for the record, I'm a "less is more" type of person when it comes to web page design. Fortunately, that philosophy lends itself well to the idea of supporting all platforms and all browsers.
IMHO, what is really needed is an updated standard. I hate to say it, but, obviously, Microsoft is on to something with the extensions that they have placed into their code.. it seems that the populace has more-or-less accepted it.
The only way to enforce any standards is solely by customer usage. If a browser company diverges from the standards, and people use that browser even more because of the enhancements, then, perhaps there is something to be said for those enhancements. If, on the other hand, people avoid that browser for its 'incompatibility', then that browser maker has two choices: (1) die, (2) change.
[root@angel:/root]$ queso www.lite.citifi.com
192.193.201.10:80 * Reliant Unix from Siemens-Nixdorf
The Maginot-skirting is classic FUBAR though.
What part of "Gestalt" don't you understand?
What part of "gestalt" don't you understand?
And it looks like their server isnt supported by them..
www.citifi.com is running Netscape-Enterprise/3.6 SP2 on Solaris
Interesting...
-- iCEBaLM
isn't there a way to update your certs?
In an rpms for ns 4.70 i saw a diff for the cert file...
It seems the real reason they only support the M$ and Mac OS's is the lack of financial software(Quicken or M$ Money) for other OS's .
Perhaps, after reviewing the Linux Advocacy HOWTO, a few friendly suggestions to INTUIT would help.
Something tells me M$ wouldn't be very interested.
I'll use what ever OS does the best job. for servers, i use BSD. For games, web browsing and office suites and music, i use windows. I won't be complianing because when linux does a better job at all those things (long time from now) I'll switch. But that time is not here. not by far. It's not about MS and all that politics. It's about what works. Windows works for me in certain places and unix fill the holes for my other needs.
ok... I don't agree that Linux "isn't there", but I'll accept your opinion on that.
:-)
At least your argument is reasonably logical. I won't disagree with that either.
The only things you might want to check out are:
- Quake, Unreal, etc... (many good games for Linux)
- Netscape (works better in Linux. when it crashes, it doesn't take down the OS)
- StarOffice (better than Office, IMHO)
- xmms, plany, mpg123 (you'll find they play music files great).
These all do the games, web browsing, office suites, and music you asked about with ease. And most do the same or better job than their windows counterparts, due to the inherent stability of the Linux OS.
Linux would do the job for you fine. So what were we arguing about again?
I get that "your operating system" error while trying to view the site in Netscape Communicator4.7 with Java and Java Script off on OpenBSD 2.6.
Perhaps you should just point them to the W3C verification tools, or the Web Interoperability pledge.
:0)) will be enough to convince them.
Heck, the WIP is even on ZDNet, which should be familiar to your local PHB.
You can also grab screenshots of the various browsers in dual boot situations. Another option is to show them the access log of the webserver (for the past x years) broken down by user age. But I'm sure just Opera, Netscape, and IE under Windows (which should be available
---
--
Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
The issue here is the exclusion of non Windows platforms.
The SSL certificates are not the issue - SSL transactions will still work anyway though their will be error messages.
CSS is not the issue.
Please PAY attention.
But the best part was on their page entitled "About Encryption":
For a 40-bit key there are 240 possible different combinations. For a 128-bit key (the level of encryption that Citibank requires) there are 2128 possible different combinations.
"Ooooh .... 2128 possible combinations - the power of large numbers will keep me safe ..... no one will guess my key" .... after the fit of sarchasm subsided I realised that some bonehead web designer who knows nothing about encryption had dropped a "^" or two
If the bank screws up, an OS/2 or Linux user is smart enough to figure it out.
A Windows user is still running Windows, need I say more?
RSI Injured geek wins against Mattel, Mattel still retaliates.
If you mean "GUI" by desktop, X11 has windows beat by miles, in usability, quality, and when it was made. So don't tell me Linux has to go somewhere to beat windows in the desktop. It has.
If you mean home computer by desktop, then I suppose you mean "idiot box". Well, if that is what someone wants, they should stick with webTV. That tools fits that kind of user better.
If you think Linux doesn't have what it takes to make it in this "desktop" market you talk about, tell us what is missing. Maybe we can either prove you wrong (likely) or fix it (probably not needed). Until you open you mouth and say something PRODUCTIVE, we won't know, and you will _never_ get anything better than what you have now.
BTW: The only companies that talk of desktops are Microsoft and Funiture Stores. I have difficulty wrapping my mind around the general idea of what the desktop you want to talk about is... Is it machine, software, or a combo?
$ required to support other browsers > $ made by supporting users with other browsers
Remember, Citif/i is a business. Quit bitching about what's Right and Wrong.
Hands in my pocket
I can get more work done using Linux (or other *nix) than with Windows. Try running anything at all processor intensive in Windows and then try to use an interactive application at the same time.
"platform support"=10 minute job by one person
10 minutes work by one person is too much effort to server potentially hundreds of customers?
You missed the point entirely, sorry.
The problem is not that the site "doesn't work" with Linux browsers -- that would be a browser problem -- it's that it checks what OS you're running and denies you access under anything but Windows/Mac.
There is no reason to check what OS the client is using and deny them access based on it.
- Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)
As an employee of one of citifi.com's impending competitors, I should probably be happy that you are giving this advice. Our services don't require the use of a particular browser, and we try not to make browser-specific decisions in our designs and implementations.
However, I cannot resist pointing out that you are full of shit. There may be people who want to use citifi.com's services, for whatever reason, and they have every right to give CitiBank an opportunity to explain themselves before going to someone else. Since when is polite protest not legitimate? If you are too passive to do anything about a problem, that is your problem; keep it to yourself. The rest of us reserve the right to try and improve things.
--
Some keywords for the NSA in the Lord of the Rings universe: One Ring bind find Sauron quest Nazgul freedom
If that's all it took don't you think that they'd do it? They don't deny access to their online banking systems. It probably took 10 minutes to write the rejection page that's there, if it was as easy to support the unix platform they would do that rather than turn away other potential customers.
The best thing to do is to call them at 1-800-2-citifi and let them know of your displeasure.
Please do be polite, after all, "you catch more flies with honey" et al...
Interestingly, the rep I spoke to had just bought Redhat Linux, so I definitely found a sympathetic ear :)
'Cause it ain't gonna happen. People like you wonder why people use Windows or Macs, when the answer is staring you right in the face. It's because they can actually get work done and have fun because they don't have to deal with this shit. Look at all the time that's been wasted by people such as yourself in the past two weeks, because this site, and that site, and that other site aren't supporting your OS choice -- we won't even get into software and hardware. Until Linux can make some serious gains on the desktop, I'll keep it on some of my servers, where it belongs, and I'll just keep getting work done and having fun using Win2K while you pull your hair out over petty little stuff like this.
You can moderate me down all you want, but just try thinking about it sometime.
Cheers,
ZicoKnows@hotmail.com
...is merely to ask back: How do we inform YOU that what the computer-illiterate managers demand is in fact possible using the W3C's own CSS specification, an open, well-designed, flexible, and featureful language that even lets you do things like "increase the font size a little" or add page breaks to HTML documents (thanks to media-independence at last)? No high-school bully tactics required!
That's right, web designers... your layout can be completely abstracted from your structured documents and give you a finer degree of typographical control than the Web has ever allowed before... all you need to do is start using them. If you lead, the browsers will be forced to follow. Act now, and we'll throw in this free (worthless and obsolete) collection of non-CSS-capable web browsers for Linux absolutely free!
The ones using free Operating Systems would have leftover money in their pockets.
The ones who sent money to Bill Gates, would be sitting in the corner with vacant looks in their eyes, wondering how they managed to burn through all that cash. And thinking that perhaps the animated paperclip wasn't worth that much money after all...
Maybe introduce it like handicapped access -- "you have to compromise on form to let certain people access it. You wouldn't want the blind sueing us, eh?"
I'm sure you can put some positive "help me, and I help you" spin on making a compatible page, with an "enchanced" version for the market droids to peer at.
---
--
Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
And not just "RedHat" or "Linux" means this problem might actually get fixed. :-)
Acording to Netscape's cert info page you have to upgrade your browser or put up with a warning dialog box. Don't know about IE though.
This just isn't right, there are a lot of computers out there in use that don't have the horsepower to run the current browser versions well. You would *think* that there would be something we could do if we don't want to put up with that message besides chunking the computer.
Also, how long are the certs in the current browser versions good for?
The point should be that the information in the document will display quite well on ANY combination of the above. Most of these finicky non-tech manager designed web pages can be made to look like CRAP in at least some version/application/platform combination. They need to ask whether the customer is going to go and download and install the OS and application that the site is "best viewed in". That kind of crap might work in a LAN (but even then the CEO is likely to have a 21" monitor at 1600x1200 and want "the fonts made bigger" while the drones use 14" monitors at 640x480) - but on the public internet it's the equivalent of purposefully mispelling your address in the phone book.
when will people realized HTML is not MS-Word and that alot of us are very happy about that?
I have a major complaint about people who complain ....
I don't have any strange fascination you suggest. I just used your weak mind against you to get you into a paradox. I think I did pretty good. Here's the conversation:
You: fuck. get over it. and stop fuckn' complaining...
Me (reminding you of the recursion you implied): You first
You: Why don't you go fuck yourself you festering whore!
Me (contemplating YOUR idea and expanding): ok why don't you join me?
You: In your wet fucking dreams, you flamer.
Me (reminding you what flamer means): and you have some sort of problem with gay men?
You: No problems here freak boy. What your fascination with fucking people who think you are an asshole. You have issues. I hope you find your solutions from the barrel of a gun.
I didn't say I thought you were an asshole. Just weak minded. Sure I have isses, with weak minded trolls like you.
And I especially enjoyed you last sentence, just what I was waiting for. I figured I'd get you riled up enough to:
a) Break the law (what you said would be considered a death threat where I live, and is illegal.)
b) Provide an answer with no comeback at all.
c) Imply that you yourself are an asshole/jerk/loser (you chose the former).
d) Suggest I need mental health
The paradox involved the fact that since you suggest I think you are an asshole, and with your tone of speech you strongly suggest you think I am an asshole, you therefore epitomize what you dislike about me: fucking people you think are an asshole. Allow me to quote you "In your wet fucking dreams, you flamer.", after I suggested you join me. As if you were some kind of prize to me.
Heheh. That was fun. Let's try for 2 out of 2, shall we?
You'd think IT managers at one web site could handle changing the HTML (an hour long job?) to allow 1000's more users to access it ... it's a no-brainer decision.
In fact you have to go to a lot of trouble to make a web site NOT accessible.
You just out-argued a Troll. Have you ever heard the expression 'Don't feed the Trolls'. You must be bored. How sad.
It's funny that their solution for an expired certificate is to either upgrade to a Y2K incompatible browser (IE 4.01 isn't w/o other patches) and Mac I.E. 4.5 has the SAME certificate problem.
_this is not a signature_
"- Microsoft stuff usually works fine, allowing people to use their computer as a tool and not a fetish object."
But I'm sure that was just an oversight on your part.
(Score: -1, Uncomfortably Close to the Truth)
A reality check like this was long overdue.
Cheers,
ZicoKnows@hotmail.com
Have you discovered some sort of link between browser use and financial success?
Or is it that, in certain financial circles, use of Netscape is frowned upon?
If I use Netscape, am I doomed to a life of abject poverty, begging for scraps of food from the overprivileged Explorer users?
Inquiring minds want to know!
I don't see why eveyone is getting so pissed just because you can't view citibank's page. If you don't like it, vote with your choice, and go to a different bank.
More proof that Unix programmers are just smarter.
Well, it's not an OS issue (Macs are supported with Netscape), and it's not a browser issue (both Netscape and IE are supported on different platforms), so it sounds to me like it's a coding problem. Hopefully this is the case, and it will be taken care of soon.
This saddens me, because I just signed up for an account with citi f/i and was prepared to really like them. However, I will not be canceling my check or boycotting them in protest. I've looked at the online services offered by a number of banks, and all of them have extra fees for this "convenience."
I object to being charged for the privelege of doing something that makes my bank's life easier and saves them money.
While this putrid web-design incompetence does make me a little leary about how well their banking services are designed, I'm still in favor of the general idea of online banking enough that I'm willing to support them.
Then again, It's not like they're the only online bank around. Can anyone recommend another no-extraneous-fees service that isn't stupid?
-----
Go ahead, blame me... I voted for Nader!
In that article title... it's "denies" not "denys". :)
What's the point of spelling bees anyway? See how much rote learned knowledge you can cram in your head? That's pretty much all it is, a memory contest. I don't know why people waste time with such things. Who cares if you can spell large and complicated words? Apparently though, it seems spelling bees are a big thing in the US, why I have no idea....
It's as if they dont want smart geeks as customers...
...or is it some internal bean-counting morons vetoed a more open solution in favor of the instant SNAFU mentioned above that will turn away MILLIONS while it's being re-done.
Big mistake to end the century with...
Joe Torre - X - HardwareEngineer @ Amiga Inc & ZapMedia Amiga, AmigaDE, BeOS, Linuxz, QNX, Rebol, Windoze, ZME: So
THIS IS JUST FUCKING ABSOLUTE LAMENESS... PEOPLE ARE SO FUCKING RETARTED ... DOES ANYONE HAVE A CLUE HOW TO MAKE A WEBSITE...
I dont know if they Like the Mac Os more then The Linux but I can get into threw Netscape 4.5 in Os 8.5
Well, so? There are tons of pages that are written badly. w3history.org doesn't allow "alternate browsers" either (Opera won't work under Linux or Windows...it requires IE or Netscape), but Slashdot had no problem linking to it (without any browser comment) anyway. Why suddenly the comment here? Do we only care if Netscape/Mozilla under Linux can access a site?
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Now that IE 4/5 has 80% of the browser market, and increasing every week, only the most suicidal banking site wouldn't make sure that their site works under IE.
Secondly, I use free software on my desktops all the time -- Perl, Python and various Cygnus tools come to mind, as well as some servers running Linux (two of them for two different startups). The difference is that I use the best tool for the particular job, instead of trying to shoehorn Linux in where it is particularly ill-suited -- namely the desktop.
Oh yeah, and I tried Mozilla out two weeks ago, and it still has a long way to go. Cute "Shop" button, though. :)
Cheers,
ZicoKnows@hotmail.com
After a small bit of work, I was able to access their site.. but I don't see why they REQUIRE certain browsers ..
I use wwwoffle for a web proxy .. I edited my /etc/wwwoffle/wwwoffle.conf to report my User-Agent as "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 5.0; Windows 98)" when i connect to a site. I was then able to enter citibank's site because it thought i was using msie for windows
After some exploration, I have come to the conclusion that citibank's new site is JUST EYECANDY with ICKY javascript. It works fine with Netscape for Linux .. we deffinately must give citibank the same talk we gave fox.com!
i used this same method to access fox.com when it still didn't allow netscape for linux
Important Browser Upgrade Information!
If you are using a Netscape browser older than version 4.06, or Internet Explorer version 4.01 browser for the Macintosh, Citi f/i recommends that you download a newer version of these browsers before December 31, 1999. This is because the Certificate Authority certificate that allows you to use this service and other services from other companies securely (that is, with your communication encrypted) will expire at the end of 1999. Once the Certificate expires, you will receive a message online warning you that the certificate has expired.
In other words, instead of making a nice message on non-https part of the site and leaving it to users to take actions, smartasses decided to make wild assumptions, how User-Agent field must look in the "right" browser, and redirect everything that does not look like Windows or MacOS to a page with rude message and no mentioning of certificates, just because they don't know, which version of Netscape for other systems (hint to citifi -- the same as for Windows) they should recommend.
Very lame.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
Sheesh, it drives me up the wall.
"Make sure our site ranks high on search engines. Make sure you repeat keywords in the meta tags." (Like they know what a META tag does) . . . How do you explain to somebody that it ain't that easy, and that repeating keywords kills your ranking?
"I don't like where that line breaks!" Like I can really have a lot of control over that. Say some user who has increased his font size comes along. The text breaks in some odd place for him.
"Make sure you test those CGI scripts on Windows and Macintosh!" Like the browser really affects the way the CGI script operates.
And, of course, as the guy mentioned, there is always the "You need to move faster!" When I'm trying to kick the bugs outta a script. Then, if I get rushed into putting the script into action without adequate debugging, it's my fault because it wasn't right before it went live.
Where does this all end? I don't know. I think that some of the stuff you can create with Shockwave/Director/Whatever is cool. Quicktime movies and RealAudio are neat. We can do neat stuff with the web that wasn't possible four years ago. But, we're losing sight of the original purpose of the internet -- to allow information to be accesible to lotsa folks in a platform-independent way. It's easy to ignore part of the population (those who use Lynx, those who use Linux, or even those who don't want to install Shockwave on their computer) since they may not make up a large percentage of the population, but that doesn't make it right. I know we'll never go back to that completely, but I just wish people would TRY to understand that before they go deciding what, why, when, and how they want their website to look and act.
Sorry, I know a lot of that was off-topic, but I've been steaming over some of it for a while, and this thread provided an opportunity to vent a bit.
And you have completely missed the point. YES, THIS IS REALLY POOR WEB DESIGN.
My bank is asking people to upgrade from Netscape version 4.05 too but their site will continue to work (and works fine now in all versions of Unix netscape)
The notice they sent:
Please be aware that as of January 1st, 2000, Netscape will issue an error message
in secure areas of web sites warning you that
your browser's root certificate has
expired. These browsers contain a security component (root CA certificate) that is
set to expire on December 31st,1999. There
are three things you must know:
1.This is not a Y2K issue nor a bank issue.
2.All financial transactions you conduct after
you receive the error message
will continue to be processed securely.
3.To eliminate this problem, we recommend that
you upgrade your browser before year end. When
upgrading your browser, please ensure that you
download the 128-bit encryption browser.
Go to http://home.netscape.com/download to get the
latest version of Netscape Navigator.
For more information, please visit
http://home.netscape.com/cms/certinfo.html
why do people have to complain whenever a site does not look good on linux? do you think the web developers deliberately designed their site that way? not all developers have the time to test their html on every browser on every possible platform. if the site doesn't get rendered properly on your platform, it is not their fault. it is your choice to use linux.
Folks,
I hate to sound like this, but consider this: Windows makes up something like 85% of the desktop user base in the world right now.
Because of that, it's obvious that Citibank is going to go after that market first. Given that Internet Explorer 4.0x and later and Netscape Communicator 4.06 and later for Windows 95/98/NT4 should work with Citibank's new site, that will cover the vast majority of potential customers for this service.
Anyway, once Netscape Communicator 5.0 ships some time in 2000, this will no longer be an issue, since Communicator 5.0--based on Mozilla technology--should in theory work with Citibank's new site with no problems.
Raymond in Mountain View, CA
You should try Linux out.
You must be unhooked from phonics. "Denys" is still wrong either way.
"Where am I going to get six PCs to demonstrate browser issues?"
Computers are so ubiquitious these days most thrift shops stock them, at one time or another. There they cost maybe $25 each, that's console, keyboard, mouse, and monitor price. Local papers might not be such a bad place to look too. Now ya just gotta figure out how to power them all without starting a fire in the walls.
I tried to contact your webpage and it tells me that you just installed apache. I just installed apache too. What a cool coincidence dude. apache rocks.
However, this has been enough for me to change my main bank. I used to bank with the Royal Bank of Scotland, but solely because of the availability and features of their internet banking uner linux, I have changed to Barclays Bank!
Of the others I've approached...
egg.com works, as long as you turn java off,, but it's so basic (savings and credit card only) and so SLOW to react (they respond to e-requests sometimes over a week later).
first-e.com and smile are impossible to apply under linux because they run afoul of the "long drop down list and keyboard freezing" bug in netscape... I couldn't even apply for first-e under windows as their forms were all messed up when using large fonts! When I contact them about it, they gave me step by step instructions to set my monitor to 800x600 with small fonts. Fine, but... I do not think I'd bank with them if I had to change fonts and resolution every time I wanted to do some banking!
Karma makes sense. It makes a lot more sense if you add reincarnation.
Point out to their webmaster that their site is probably not useable by people with alternative browsers, particularly blind people, and then point them to the AOL lawsuit that is currently in the works.
Don't necessarily bring up Linux, or the requirements for Javascript or the fact that a certain required plugin only works on platform X. But tell them that their page is not going to be usable by handicapped people, and they should make the small but necessarily fixes to remove excessive obstiticals to make their page usable by all.
I'd also like to see someone start a page on various .com sites that were redesigned after the browser handicap was pointed out, sort of a victory list. Get something like that going, with a good number of large .com sites, and you might actually have more sites that look good. (and get these types of stories off Slashdot, as it's beginning to look like SW:TPM stories, with a new story for every little bit of trivia)
"Pinky, you've left the lens cap of your mind on again." - P&TB
"I can see my house from here!" - ST:
People like you and I probably don't give a crap how it looks, as long as it works and the information is there, but computer illiterate managers only have the surface looks to judge by. Heck, when I was developing the code in the background I was accused of moving too slowly, but once I was working on the cute interface I was suddenly moving at a blistering pace - fact is I was working at the same quick speed the whole time.
Managers of companies appear to believe the world revolves around them. When I told one that a feature he wanted was not supported by the HTML standards he actually asked me to get them changed.
So, the question is; How do we inform computer illiterate managers that the Web is a collaberative community of standards, rather than a dictatorship governed by high school bully tactics?
I don't think I'm ever likely to need to use citifi.com. I don't think I would ever have gone there at all if not for the Slashdot pointer to their article.
I know it's nice for sites to offer access to all operating systems, but I find it hard to get worked up over something like this. If you don't like it, there are thousands of other banks in the U.S. alone. (I bank locally anyway.)
Now, something that does annoy me is that I can't seem to get access to my Commerce Bank account's automatic check-dispatchment system (click on the "sign in" link) with Netscape/Linux even when I accept all cookies and connect directly to the Internet. sigh.
Editor Emeritus and Senior Writer, TeleRead.org
Please mind your P's & Q's and make sure you say please & thank you and wear clean underwear.
WTF???
Citi f/i currently supports Windows 95, Windows 98, and Windows NT 4.0 running Netscape Navigator and Internet Explorer. It also supports Macintosh running Netscape Navigator only. If you need further assistance, please call 1-800-2-citifi.
It rendered differently using Netscape (I used both Netscape and Opera behind a junkbuster proxy that disables cookies and masquared my user agent to be Netscape 4.7 on 2.2.13). It looks like it used Javascript to block arbitray browsers.
As it's their website, it's their choice wether or not they allow people using things other than a certain browser and/or OS. I, however, don't see why they'd not allow any forms/SSL 128 capable browser to become a potential paying customer.
I do have one question, though. Are we, the Slashdot readers and contributors, going to become the "website design police" -- cracking down on any site that just plain doesn't have high standards and proper design? Let these companies go and block people out -- then politely email them to ask them why they don't want your money. This should raise eyebrows, and eductate over at the company's office. "You, IT guy, why are we blocking out paying customers? I know you can fix this, so please do." Why not setup a public forum, or a site of some kind to audit websites for people, free of charge? This would certainly kill a few bugs with one squish.
---
--
Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
Citibank's online banking is the worst product of its kind. I'm glad they are taking the steps that will one day finish it off for good.
I think it's ethically wrong for them to deny access based on OS, unless there's some kind of sound technical reason for them to do so (which there isn't in my mind) It's against the spirit of the internet. Cross platform information sharing was one of the reason why the web took off in the first place and they're violating that ideal. However, decisions like platform support aren't made haphazardly and I'm sure that they sat down looked at the cost analysis comparing the price of making sure the site worked with all platforms vs the expected revenue from users accessing the site via unix hosts. I know that if you stick to good clean code browser and os differences shouldn't give you any problems, but a lot of people aren't writing good clean code.
I've been using their online banking system from my linux box for the past year, I know that I show up in their web logs. I'm sure a lot of other unix users show up there as well, but I'm also sure that they don't have enough non-windows, non-mac clients to warrant extra effort in platform support
Citibank is a buisness, they look at the bottom line and do what's most profittable. In this case it was denying access to non windows/mac users. Do I wish that they would support all of the OS's or at least unix? Yes... Do I blame them for not supporting them? No.
If you press the 'about citifi' link on the bottom, you can access the rest of the page, and it looks FINE in netscape /w linux. Everything seems to be working in order, if you really need the side, just click on the 'about' button. This seems to be more of a oversight than an evil conspiracy, just send them a POLITE e-mail or call them to tell them!
Sadfsdaf
A 4 lettered nickname
In that article title... it's "denies" not "denys". :)
Phonetically and historically speaking, "denys" is the correct spelling. It comes from the Greek "denyspectis", or, "refusing to see". The Greek letter Omicron from the original word would be more closely linked to a "Y" in English than the "IE" sound phonetically linked to Gaelic origins.
The tag causes a browser to handle its contents like a single word. This can be useful for headlines.
Consider the phrase "Doctors solve genetic disorder". You don't want that rendered as
"Doctors solve genetic
disorder" --too ugly.
Wrap a around "genetic disorder" and you get
"Doctors solve
genetic disorder".
I keep getting inconsistant results. Queso from behind a firewalled machine said it was a Siemans host. Queso from my home box (behind Netcom/Mindspring) always shows "Dead Host, Firewalled Port" on anything. Checking Netcraft this morning I find:
www.lite.citifi.com is running Simple, Secure Web Server 1.1 on Solaris
You can check it yourself.
What part of "Gestalt" don't you understand?
What part of "gestalt" don't you understand?
What part of "Gestalt" don't you understand?
What part of "gestalt" don't you understand?
So Billy finally did buy the Internet? Why wasn't there a /. story about this event?
HTTPS://www.lite.citifi.com/cgi-bin/citifi/scripts /home/visitor.jsp?BV_UseBVCookie=yes
On my SuSE 6.3 box...
Running with Linux for over 20 years!
Same stunt was pulled by the Dutch Rabobank on their site a few weeks ago: because some 'small' errors were reported in older browsers than v4, certifcates could expire in cases that they were not really expired. So the 'not so smart' programmers of the site put up a page that checked the browser and if it wasn't IE4 or higher you simply couldn't logon, even if Netscape4 was a correct browser to work with. They've now fixed the browserchecking after a lot of complaints. Perhaps the people who really suffer from this (thus not the professional whiners who whine on everything that seems to be Redmond related) should complain to Citibank about this subject.
I have to add that it might be a 'flaw' in design, and not a 'feature' that is put in on purpose. Add that that to the fact that we sometimes developers have to choose for new technology and cut loose backwards compatibility, and you get a group of people who suffer under the developer's decicion, but IMHO unavoidable.
Never underestimate the relief of true separation of Religion and State.
uuuuh.. that last scentense was really bad. Should have been:
Add that to the fact that developers sometimes have to choose for new technology and cut loose backwards compatibility, and you get a group of people who suffer under the developer's decision, but IMHO unavoidable.
Never underestimate the relief of true separation of Religion and State.
Ok, I thought, but as it is Java let me try the demo on the Sun-Sparc I have access to: Netscape crashed. Reply when I emailed the bank: Sorry, only tested on win*. A few weeks later I tried again and now the demo was stable. I mailed them that result and they answered that they could not guarentie that I could use their service if I ordered it. Then I didn't order it because they take money for giving me access and I clearly do not want to pay unless I am sure it will work. They claimed that some customers have made it work on Linux if they run it as root. And as the only Linux machines I have access to at work are Alpha and not x86 based that would not help me much.
Is this just because Java sucks (too many differences between the implementations on Windos* and unices) that it is fair for the bank only to develop and test on Windows*? Is their excuse for not suporting Mac-users real then? Or is it just lazyness as most Danes are using Windows* (it is actually worse than in US)?
If you can read Danish check the banks website.
(BTW, I've had this EXACT same problem. I ended up leaving the place and they hired a guy that used $uckpage - yuck!)
Citi f/i currently supports Windows 95, Windows 98, and Windows NT 4.0 running Netscape Navigator and Internet Explorer. It also supports Macintosh running Netscape Navigator only. If you need further assistance, please call 1-800-2-citifi.
This is what I got from Netscape® Communicator 4.7 under Solaris 7 haven't tried Linux yet, but more than likely it will get the same error.
"`Ford, you're turning into a penguin. Stop it.'" -THHGTTG
Not that this is the case here, but perhaps a company wants to design a site using a specific valid HTML 4.0 layout which Netscape is unable to display correctly. Then, looking at the demographics, they see that Netscape now has less than 20% of the browser market, and that only half of those users are the type of clients that they're trying to attract. They might just decide that keeping their current layout and losing some users is a better deal than redesigning the site in an inferior way.
It's completely fair on their part. You are the one who chose an operating system for which IE is unavailable, and you need to be prepared for the negative aspects of that decision. If I pulled my C-64 out of storage and decided to make that my main OS, it'd be ludicrous of me to complain to Id that it's not fair of them to deny me the fun of playing Q3-Arena just because I'm using a C-64.
Cheers,
ZicoKnows@hotmail.com
I think people who decide to switch to linux should just take what they get and not complain. They Chose to change OS's and if someone has a service for windows, then too bad. Don't complain! Accept it. Don't make everyone cater to your needs. babies.
Strange you think that way, being that netscape was the browser that you (at one time) had to PAY for... Usually the only people that pay for things are ahem... "affluent".
Of course, maybe people become affluent by not paying for things. Who knows? Who cares!
If they're truly screening user agents? Indeed, that would suck.
If they unleashed truly crappy HTML?
Welcome to the anarchy of the web. Drop them an email. and go somewhere else.
Strange you think that way, being that netscape was the browser that you (at one time) had to PAY for... Usually the only people that pay for things are ahem... "affluent".
Of course, maybe people become affluent by not paying for things. Who knows? Who cares!
(Sorry if this appears twice. Slashdot busted again)
I read this story and almost choked on my Corn Flakes.
How can such a travesty of justice occur in a civilized society. Especially this close to Christmas. I am now in the middle of a letter to my Congressman. No God fearing country should allow such discrimination to accur. We should organize a letter writing campaign to stop this abuse. We must tell the world that we will not stand for this.
Right now I have sent messages to all my friends so that tomorrow we can have a bake sale to raise funds for the upcoming legal battle.
If we allow this to continue, what is next? Licences to drive cars? Gun permits? Hell no.
Stand up to these companies. Tell them we will not allow them to trample our rights.