Firefox 3.5 and bank site compatibility - silly

[Ocky]

I am truly cross with my bank .. wrote to them as follows:-

Dear Sirs,

I have tried 'Talk to Us' but have never had any intelligent answer/feedback from them, so please ensure that this mail
reaches the person responsible for the internet banking site.

I have received a pop-up from the banking site (previously only a message in red on top of the page) that Firefox versions
3.5 and 3.6 are not compatible with the site unless I clear the browser cache beforehand using either of the options shown -
see screenshot:-

216099

Sounds ridiculous. What has that got to do with compatibility .. read on.
In fact I have benn using Firefox 3.5 from time to time and have noticed no incompatibilities at all. ( Of course I always ensure the browser cache
is cleared beforehand anyway.)
The strange thing is that the older Firefox version 3.0 is compatible according to your site despite the warning message in red saying it is incompatible
on top of the page. ( Please remove it soonest.)
I mainly use the old Firefox version 3.0 for banking in Ubuntu Linux and have done so for a very long time. It has the identical settings in about:config
to version 3.5 i.e. the two browser cache settings are set to 'true' ..... yet no pop-up here.
Please also understand that the 'newer' Firefox version 3.5 was released a long time ago on 30/6/2009. Version 3.6 was released in January this year.
Why is Nedbank still claiming that these browsers are unsupported ? They are supported and changing the browser cache settings won't
automagically change their status from unsupported to supported. That is impossible.
You should also be aware of the fact that not everyone uses Internet Explorer - certainly not in Europe where Firefox is now the browser of choice ... see
pie chart ..

http://www.wilderssecurity.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=213987&d=1259742492

You also need to get with it and support Opera 10x browsers. Opera 9x is obsolete and insecure. !!

Regards,

Any comments as regards the browser cache clearing ??? Banking here is becoming really frustrating. Link https://netbank.nedsecure.co.za/

[Sputnik]

A quick suggestion, you could try out Chromium on Ubuntu:
https://launchpad.net/~chromium-daily/+archive/beta

Personally I ran into similar issues with both Firefox and Opera, Chromium works fine (not the same bank but a European bank).

[dw426]

I still run into this junk on websites I visit. I'm not going to get into security issues regarding browsers, that is easily handled by users willing to spend 10 minutes making some configuration changes. However, the "This only works in IE" crap is LONG past due to end. These kinds of websites are the result of either:

1. A website owner/developer who created the website/coding long ago and is too lazy to change it.

2. A website owner/developer that has no idea what they are doing and really need to be schooled before being allowed to create another website.

To be honest, it's usually reason number 1, for which there is no excuse.

[Ocky]

Someone from the bank phoned me today saying that all would be 'fixed' by their IT dept. over the weekend.
Their excuse being that Firefox releases are too frequent for them to keep up with their internet banking site updates. I pointed out that Firefox 3.5 was released way back on 30/6/2009 not to mention 3.0 for which there is also still a warning message.
Looks like dw426 is right ..

-{ Quote: "1. A website owner/developer who created the website/coding long ago and is too lazy to change it." }-

[dw426]

-{ Quote: "Someone from the bank phoned me today saying that all would be 'fixed' by their IT dept. over the weekend.
Their excuse being that Firefox releases are too frequent for them to keep up with their internet banking site updates. I pointed out that Firefox 3.5 was released way back on 30/6/2009 not to mention 3.0 for which there is also still a warning message.
Looks like dw426 is right .." }-

Now, I'm no programmer, nor am I a website developer (always did want to try that though), but that doesn't seem right to me. Firefox releases aren't really that much more frequent than anyone else. And, with the possible exception of 3.5 to 3.6, prior releases changed mainly what every other browser changes, Javascript speed and maybe some user interface changes. Neither of which should break any website, at least not one created in this decade.

I could very well be wrong, but it seems to me like they just don't want to mess with it.

[Ocky]

-{ Quote: "Now, I'm no programmer, nor am I a website developer (always did want to try that though), but that doesn't seem right to me. Firefox releases aren't really that much more frequent than anyone else. And, with the possible exception of 3.5 to 3.6, prior releases changed mainly what every other browser changes, Javascript speed and maybe some user interface changes. Neither of which should break any website, at least not one created in this decade.

I could very well be wrong, but it seems to me like they just don't want to mess with it." }-
Exactly. the website works just fine, my grouse was with them showing the warning pop-up saying 'Incompatible Browser Detected' and saying that compatibility can be achieved by clearing the cache before using the site - as shown in ss. Rather silly of course especially as the old FF 3.0x has the browser.cache settings (true) and they deem that version to be compatible.
It simply makes no sense and could panic some users here into abandoning their banking due to the big pop-up telling them that their version of FF is no good. Anyway all should be fixed on Monday. Thanks.

[1boss1]

-{ Quote: "Neither of which should break any website, at least not one created in this decade.

I could very well be wrong, but it seems to me like they just don't want to mess with it." }-

Exactly right, just because Firefox updated doesn't mean the W3C consortium pulled the rug from under the whole HTML standards or the Secure Sockets transport layer got tossed out the window.

There's just no excuse these days.

[MikeBCda]

Some years back, I ran into apparent compatibility problems with both my bank's site and the Revenue Cda. site for my taxes. In both cases, no version of Firefox was (supposedly) compatible ... the bank simply referred me to their "system requirements" page, while the govt site blocked me with a popup.

I called the tech-support numbers both places, and got essentially the same answer from each: go ahead and try anyway, we've been told Firefox works fine for most visitors. So I did, with no problems -- the govt. one required me to tick an "ignore warning and continue" thing, but was fine after that. No hassles in more recent years, so they must have re-examined what does or doesn't work on their pages, maybe also cleaned up a little of their coding in the process.