Online banking and Linux

[MiNoS]

Well... I was in my bank today and when I asked if online banking works with Linux the guy looked at me as if I was talking some strange language...

Anyone with similar experiences?

[mhelios]

Unfortunately it's not uncommon.. Most desk workers run that "other OS" on there machines and have no reason to even know what Linux is. I bet if you talk to one of there tech guys, he won't have the same blank expression on his face. ;) I bet some of the bank's local servers are running linux.
Hopefully in a couple years, that same guy won't only know what linux is...he'll be running it on his machine! (We can only hope)

[moersleutel]

It seems that most Belgian/Dutch banks think the User Base is to small to bother with non-IE browser compatibility.

I use KBC's online banking - which can be made to work with Mozilla after tweaking Java setup manually - don't ask me to describe how because I haven't tried it myself.

I also use Dutch RABO's Alex online banking - the system is crippled if used with any browser other than IE. Just too much code/features of the site are geared towards IE.

I myself work for another bank in Belgium; our client base is rather small and does not include retail banking. Our online banking system is also only supported for IE users. Our IT dept. only tests for IE 6, 5 en 4.
They just can't imagine that people might use other OS / Browser combinations. I did the test once and our own site did not work with Mozilla or Opera; it does work with Konquerer but site appearance is messed up.
When I reported these problems; they just didn't care and said it was a management decision.

As long as banks won't adhere to standards like W3C, ... but insist on using those fancy features that only IE seems to render correctly - all <your favorite browser> can do is play catch-up.

The use of Linux / OS X / ... on the desktop is just to small in Belgium to make banks think the investment is worthwile.

[MiNoS]

@ moersleutel

KBC works on mozilla? Great... this means I could try it as well :)

Thx for the info.

[Ug]

HSBC works with Mozilla Firefox.

[foolish]

What you need to do is to contact the bank. If they don't do something to ease the use of other browsers on their webpage there must be some kind of state-office you can complain to.

Discrimination isn't allowed and forcing people to buy something expensive to use a service isn't ethical and I'm sure the banks all agree on that.

Microsoft explorer is free only if you use Windows and since you do you will have to pay for Windows to be able to use your banks online services they force you to pay to use their systems. This won't do.

Mozilla on the other hand, is free to use for everyone no matter what. Go team!

[Ug]

http://www.mozilla.org for those not in the know.

[frannack]

axabanque works with Mozilla Firefox

Of course, this won't help those of you who aren't in France, but maybe some other french guys will see it, hopefully:D

Franck

[Ug]

Ive never heard of it. :p

[DaDevil]

The same here with two local banks here in Malaysia called BCB and Public Bank.

I have accounts in both of them and while activating the internet banking stuff I asked both the banks whether the portal is non-IE compatible. Man the looks I got just for popping up this question :D.

One person at BCB even told me "Sir there are no other browsers available other than IE." :confused: Then I took upon myself to enlighten the poor individual on the options available on the other side but at the end to no avail. What he said was if the OS is free it is not good.

The Public Bank fellows gave me the stock response that the user base is too small to make the portal non-IE compatible but at least they knew that there are other browsers available :D.

[Ug]

Surely you can still access it with Mozilla Firefox?

[serpico]

My bank works fine with Firefox on Linux or OS X. I think banks will need to support more Oses in the future as soon as smartphones and other handheld devices running PalmOS and PocketPC become very popular.

This of course means sticking to internet standards and not IE standards. In turn it will give OS X and Linux users more services.

[DaDevil]

Nope Mozilla Firefox also refuses to work on these particular sites. I tried it on both the page just keeps on saying loading loading... and thats it. It does not give any error. If it gave some kind of error I could at least try to find out why it is not loading. But in this case nope. :D

[mhelios]

You guys might want to look into spoofing your HTTP useragent to pretend to be an MSIE 5.5 or similar client! This may do the trick. ;) KDE's Konqueror browser can change this for all or particular sites. You'll have to search on how to do it with Mozilla etc.

[Ug]

I can't find out how to do it for Firefox...

[mhelios]

Originally posted by ug_the_caveman
I can't find out how to do it for Firefox...
Here ya go, works for me:
http://texturizer.net/firefox/extensions/#useragentswitcher

[Ug]

I'd been trawling through that site for ages, and no luck!

[serpico]

More browsers should make it easier for users to spoof the sites they need to visit like banks. Bottom line it's the bank's IT division or outsourced company that creates the service, to accept other platform customers. People visiting their site are their regular customers, and if I couldn't access it through any platform, I would tell them to change it. Lucky for me, my bank works on every platform.

[mhelios]

Lucky for me, my bank works on every platform.


I agree, and also, lucky for me, my bank does likewise....

[Ug]

Ditto that.

[Jolly]

A&L giro bank works on mozilla
just printed off a statement :-)

[sailor]

In my experience generally online banking is more concerned with the encryption level of the browser(128 bit)...not the OS or the browser...some browsers work better than others...I am doing online banking using Mozilla 1.4 with no problems ...

[Prometheus]

I wanna know what they are coding the sites in so that some only work with IE. I cant think of a language mozilla/firefox dont support? They must look for specific IE tags or charactersitcs is the only thing i can think of. I guess it doesnt really effect me anyway though... my bank is to small to do online banking.

[Varkk]

My bank works fine in the browsers/OSes I use (Normally Mozilla under RH9 but also with things like Galeon & Firefox under RH9 and FC1) I guess it also works with other platforms as my flatmates who also use the same bank have no problems. Incidently a few years ago someone I work with at uni had problems with his banks online banking (Basically he uncovered a local security flaw where because of the way the bank implemented javascript user passwords etc were stored in a local cahce, he reported this to the bank who informed him that since linux was not officially supported by them they didn't care)

[ems]

I have found with my Bank here DownUnder, that I need to use Netscape.

With Konqueror or Mozilla it seems something is missing.

it looks like it depends from banking institution to banking institution. Seems there are no standard protocols applied here.

cheers ems

[pa1437]

i've tried using mozilla on hsbc.com.my i've been told to "please login using internet explorer 5.0 or above or netscape 4.72 or above (6.0 not compatible)."

called hsbc so call TECH service ask me to download netscape
okay fine. downloaded ns 4.79, tried failed
called hsbc so call TECH service ask me to download netscape 4.72
couldnt find it so downloaded 4.74(4.72 cant be downloaded, ns archive failed so is sillydog archive)
and still fail
konqueror and galeon failed
i use rh 9.0

[mugs]

I use Bank of America online banking with FireFox and Mozilla in Linux. Works fine.

[taylor65]

My bank works fine with Mozilla. I've run into web pages that actually look at the browser identification that your browser sends, and quits if it's not IE. Those are only web pages made by Microsoft canned software with no customization. If that feature were turned off, the web page would probably work, but some web programmers don't even know it's there. Also, if the web page just sits there and doesn't work, try disabling the pop-up blocker, some sites use pop-ups as the way to display legitimate pages.

[imdeemvp]

I use Bank of America online banking with FireFox and Mozilla in Linux. Works fine.

same here but my bank is citibank and no problem what so ever... :D

[meverhagen]

I wanna know what they are coding the sites in so that some only work with IE. I cant think of a language mozilla/firefox dont support? They must look for specific IE tags or charactersitcs is the only thing i can think of. I guess it doesnt really effect me anyway though... my bank is to small to do online banking.

I the other system it is actually possible to use something like system objects in the code. (Sounds like using gimp objects or gtk objects(gtk-php) for a website. )
In firefox we call something like that an extension. (try the chatzilla extension.)
I think the banks like to use "the other system" system objects wich aren't browser orientated.
I can only hope that the banks will compile their software as an extension.
I actually think that many of the companies who make the server software actually use unix, linux of mac system for the development of their software. (Linux allows the compilation of software in a terminal (press ctrl+f1 in the login), without a window manager. Trying to compile things in a windows manager ofter causes a segment error. Without a window manager (like windows) you will get a clean compile without segment faults.) The only reason these companies will make the windows binaries for the bank servers is because these companies think the banks want this. Apparently they are unaware.

A lot of banking sites only work on ie 5,5 of ie 6,0, so they won't work on ie4, or on ns, or on konqueror, or on mozilla, or on firefix, or on any of the other browsers. (In the stats of my website more than 70% of the visiters are using linux or mac browsers. Two years ago this was about 5%)

If tried installing wine. (getting my system vonurable for internet attacks) But I haven't got an ie 5,5 rpm. I couldn't find it. So i uninstalled wine.

Maybe it's a good idea to create a workaround.
My linux system is capeable to execute programs on other computers. Isn't it possible to use somebody else his windows browser ?