My bank seems to have stopped supporting Safari and Camino. It works with IE. I recall that you can trick a website into thinking that Safari is IE, but I can't remember how that is done. Anyone?
That may work, yes, but I would *strongly* advise you to write your bank a serious letter stating a few key things including but not limited to:
Microsoft has stopped supplying Internet Explorer upgrades on ALL platforms. When the next major version of IE ships with the next version of Windows, it will not be available for old Windows users. It would be a good idea to start supporting as wide a browsing base as possible now.
Internet Explorer is full of security holes. Cite the monthly critical security patches from Microsoft.
Competing browsers not only best IE feature-wise, but they are also widely considered more secure than IE.
If the bank supported alternative browsers before, why change now?
By masquerading as Internet Explorer, you effectively are abandoning any desire of support for Safari and Mozilla (Camino/FF/etc). You are telling the bank, "Hey, you win! Internet Explorer is clearly superior; so, I'll use IE too so you don't have to support competing products!" To the bank, it will appear that you have given up your current browser and switched to IE. Microsoft wins another round and the competition takes another kick to the groin.
Besides, your bank may work *for now* by changing the user agent, but what happens in the future when your bank starts relying on IE-only features? What if the bank's web developers decide to require something like an ActiveX component? Then you'll really be screwed.
The only way to fix this is by continuing use of your browser *without* changing the user agent whenever possible and by giving yourself a voice. Don't let yourself go unheard. Think of all the other people that may be using third-party browsers that are getting locked out by such an asinine move by the bank.
Brad, you make a good point, as usual. I wonder if it would be a good idea to make a list of sites that don't work with Safari and have us dedicated Mac users hit the sites often so that webmasters wise up. I'd be willing to set up a database for it. We'd have to make sure the http-referrer information isn't passed to the webserver.... So no clickable links. I'll see what I can do.
Brad, you make a good point, as usual. I wonder if it would be a good idea to make a list of sites that don't work with Safari and have us dedicated Mac users hit the sites often so that webmasters wise up. I'd be willing to set up a database for it. We'd have to make sure the http-referrer information isn't passed to the webserver.... So no clickable links. I'll see what I can do.
Mozilla has such a database. Check BugZilla on the "Tech Evangelism" category. Maybe the bank is listed already.
When I run across sites that don't work with Safari I write them and politely request that they upgrade their web site to work with Safari. I usually don't get a response though Wells Fargo did upgrade their site. They don't officially support it but they stopped blocking it.
Comments
Quit and restart safari and there is a new menu where you change the user agent.
- Microsoft has stopped supplying Internet Explorer upgrades on ALL platforms. When the next major version of IE ships with the next version of Windows, it will not be available for old Windows users. It would be a good idea to start supporting as wide a browsing base as possible now.
- Internet Explorer is full of security holes. Cite the monthly critical security patches from Microsoft.
- Competing browsers not only best IE feature-wise, but they are also widely considered more secure than IE.
- If the bank supported alternative browsers before, why change now?
By masquerading as Internet Explorer, you effectively are abandoning any desire of support for Safari and Mozilla (Camino/FF/etc). You are telling the bank, "Hey, you win! Internet Explorer is clearly superior; so, I'll use IE too so you don't have to support competing products!" To the bank, it will appear that you have given up your current browser and switched to IE. Microsoft wins another round and the competition takes another kick to the groin.Besides, your bank may work *for now* by changing the user agent, but what happens in the future when your bank starts relying on IE-only features? What if the bank's web developers decide to require something like an ActiveX component? Then you'll really be screwed.
The only way to fix this is by continuing use of your browser *without* changing the user agent whenever possible and by giving yourself a voice. Don't let yourself go unheard. Think of all the other people that may be using third-party browsers that are getting locked out by such an asinine move by the bank.
Originally posted by torifile
Brad, you make a good point, as usual. I wonder if it would be a good idea to make a list of sites that don't work with Safari and have us dedicated Mac users hit the sites often so that webmasters wise up. I'd be willing to set up a database for it. We'd have to make sure the http-referrer information isn't passed to the webserver.... So no clickable links. I'll see what I can do.
Mozilla has such a database. Check BugZilla on the "Tech Evangelism" category. Maybe the bank is listed already.
And I checked Tech Evangalism but couldn't find any sort of relevant database of sites that don't work.