Barclays says no to Firefox
Sheesh... get into the 21st century guv
A READER ATTEMPTING to log into a Barclays web site here found himself with a little bit of a problem.
He’s running some operating system called Linux and using Fireferret but gets an annoying message from Barclays and Mind Leaders (motto: e-learning that works) telling him to go away and use Internet Exploder.
We tried it using Windows XP and Fireferret and got the same result too, as you can see below.
As our reader said: "Seems Barclays don't quite get the 'Write once, read anywhere' concept.Still, the web's only been around for about fifteen years, that's nothing to a British bank..." µ
Comments
Egg is IE Only too
Egg's Money Manager feature is IE only too. They recommend Internet Explorer 5.0 which just shy of 10 years old now?"To see your other bank account balances on this PC, you need Internet Explorer 5.0 or above. Find out how to install Internet Explorer here."
Same with Abbey (sort of)
With the Abbey National they display a page explaining that anything by IE is an unsupported browser and they recommend using IE. The sad thing is that Firefox on Linux works perfectly ok.I have sent them a message telling them they should take down the page and confirm that Firefox (on both Linux and Windows) work perfectly fine but they just sent me a reply saying they had no plans to support other browsers in the near future. This was over a year ago and the message is still up there!! What idiots!
And what about Opera?
Do they check it when it is in IE-mask mode?*Some* Barclays sites work...
Whilst I must point out I was using Vista(!), I used Barclays on-line banking site in Firefox yesterday. I also used the Barclaycard website.I'm reasonably confident I have checked my balance and paid bills using Ubuntu + Firefox as well. (I tend to dual-boot quite a lot these days)
A message from Barclays
As soon as Firefox gains the excellent rendering capabilities of Internet Explorer, we'll allow people to access our site using it.for additional laughs - they claim standards compatibility
If you add the User Agent Switcher in Firefox to help fool them into thinking you're using IE6 and load the page, you will find this comment into the source code of their page:quote:
==========
Note: Clearlybusiness content is accessible to all versions of every browser. However, this browser does not support many basic Web standards, preventing the display of our site's design details. We support the mission of the Web Standards Project in the <a href="http://www.webstandards.org/upgrade/">campaign</a> encouraging users to upgrade their browsers.
================
HAHA HA, standards compatibility my ass.
~~~~
Worked yesterday!
That's odd, I had a load of problems with Barclays yesterday, but my Firefox wasn't one of them!Nice timing though, I've just about had enough of them, and I'm planning on marching in and giving them a piece of my mind, shortly before they give me a bundle of cash and I take it to another bank.
Now I can add Firefox and Linux to my complaints!
huh?
I dont know what he's trying to do exactly but i have no problem using barclays online banking on firefox both linux and XP.Abbey
Abbey's online wan.. i mean banking does it too. however they let you continue at you're own risk... !Workaround
Yeah its pretty poor but fortunatly theres a way around.http://www.tatanka.com.br/ies4linux/page/Main_Page
I used IEs4Linux while at uni for testing webpages on a xubuntu machine I had and it worked pretty well.
Don't blame them
As a professional software developer for a different bank, I understand and agree with Barclay's decision to support one and only one browser, especially for external (client facing) website.While all browsers are suppossed to be the same, the fact is, they're not. Standard development tools (JAVA, Struts, etc) create applications that behave differently under different browsers. One could work around this by using simple HTML, but clients are demanding more functionality out of thier financial websites than HTML will allow.
The cost of programming, testing, mainatining versions of code that are browser specific, etc, is simply too high to take on. At least Barclays is giving an error message to folks not using IE. Some other site don't, they just mess up the displays or cause errors.
Re: Barclays says no to Firefox
Seems to work okay, if you change the browser identifier..Abbey [National?] and Post Office do not understand
Abbey's web site tell you that Firefox is not supported but does allow you to log in, so when I use my Macintosh, the web site tells me to use Netscape Navigator - a browser which is no longer supported!The Post Office Credit Card web site is even worse - it will not allow you to log in on anything except Internot Exploiter, which is made more difficult on MacOS X, as Microsoft IE [version4!] is no longer supported! The Post Office Credit Card is managed by Bank of Ireland, but the BOI web site appears to allow any common browser.
There's nothing like British financial institutions being consistent ...
Using Firefox with UBS
I'm using Firefox 1.5.0.12 from a Linux x86-64 platform with the biggest Swiss bank without any issues. Barclays needs to adapt :-)Firefox works fine
I have always used firefox to browse Barclays Banks website and online banking being doing so for years. Never ever had an issue.Sime checks omitted?
Isn't this more a problem with MindLeaders rather than Barclays? But then, why didn't Barclays check?Includes Linux instruction
Use kde Konqueror to mimic IEsetting configure konqueror browser identification
click the
specialist-it-series link
and they'll teach you about linux , gosh darn it thats' nice of them
http://www.barclays-skills.com/bundle-descriptions/specialist-it-series/
"Open In IE Tab"
A popular and useful Firefox add-on for those handful of websites that don't conform to standards (that is, are IE specific).I'm not one for the tinfoil helmet stuff but I do think that an inordinate amount of effort seems to go into finding ways to code websites so that they degrade or disable competing browsers. (You know who you are......)
And the share price has been dropping...
Barclays!!! Sigh... so this brilliant bit of closed-mind thinking won't encourage customers ... perhaps helping explain why my shares have been falling so painfully these past months....Arrgghhhh !!!
Why whine ?!
There are tons of sites that say NO to IE users just the same.. and with less reasons.If it's heavy ActiveX site, than you have to get IE anyway, this is just a nice warning.
They didn't shoot you...
User agent switcher
The Barclays site works fine if you install user agent switcher in firefox and set it to IE7/Vista !!you call that a problem
Millions of IT admins around the world are in tears when it comes to Barclays Business Master software.Lets start with the basic stuff: the program only works with mapped drives. It will not accept to run from a network location. The latest version of the software is since 2003.
And finally the icing on the cake of poo: it will only run with a modem.
yes you read right, a modem and an analogue one at that. Not even USB. A hays compatible serial modem which cannot be the servers so anyone can sync data at any time.
Oh no, it has to be local to the workstation so you will need quite a few modems on a big network so people can do transactions.
in 2008 Barclays still runs on 56k serial modems people and you complain about the website? You should be happy they even have a website.
Usear Agent Switcher
The reader could try the User Agent Switcher Firefox extension found @ http://chrispederick.com/work/user-agent-switcher/Opera is acceptable :)
Goto http://www.barclays-skills.com using Opera.You'll get the error message in the article.
Right click on the page, select "Edit Site Preferences", Click the network tab & select "Mask as Internet Explorer"
Reload the page.
Barclays is now happy and allows you to proceed :P
Tested with Opera 9.23 on WinXP SP2.
There may be Exploder specific scripts in this site that will fail under Opera, but Barclays fails to notice that it's a fake Exploder :D
weird
no problems accessing Barclay's website here.Using WinXP SP2 and Firefox 2.0.0.11
If i ever get this problem, i'd go down to my nearest bank and slap the manager and get them to fix it!
I'd rather send all my money to nigeria than use Internet Explorer for online banking!
Works in Mozilla ... if you know how.
I tested the site using the (Mozilla based) SeaMonkey internet suite, but with the UA string set as IE7 on Windows XP. The site seems to work fine with this Mozilla based browser, so it should also work with Firefox. Looks like we have a case of bad browser sniffing here.User Agent Switcher gets you past the check...
Just a note that you can install the User Agent Switcher extension from:https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/59
After restarting Firefox, select Tools -> User Agent Switcher -> Internet Explorer 7 and then revisit http://www.barclays-skills.com/ (er, thanks for *not* giving us a link to the troublesome site - I had to squint at your screenshot to find it). Turns out it looks like its a simple Web application form that works perfectly on Firefox (yes, even in Linux).
I don't really advocate regularly using the User Agent Switcher extension though for 2 reasons: 1) it quite poorly can't set the user agent on a per-site basis (i.e. you only want a few sites to mimic IE, not everything) and 2) doing this just reinforces the idiocy of the Web site designers in the first place (because it counts +1 in the IE column and adds to their lame "we'll only design to the market leader browser" excuse).
BTW, your "comment on this article" page doesn't show the CAPTCHA if you turn off JavaScript, but still prompts you for a verification code - oh dear! You should have a NOSCRIPT section that says "Turn on JavaScript and reload this page" or something like that...
Natwest is just as bad
Natwest is just as bad.I bet most online banking web sites are all as bad.
just as well everyone uses M$ Windows ............ NOT
p.s. I don't BTW
and says no to Opera too ...
I tried getting in with Opera and got the same message. Then I changed the setting for the page to "mask with IE" and got in fine.Maybe they could do a course themselves under the section entitled "General business IT series" called "Web Publishing & design"
Ignorance is annoying
Barclays probably reason that, since Microsoft invented the Internet and the Web, they are best qualified to provide The Only Authorised Browser.works for me
I know of many places which do not support Firefox, and am very irritated with that.Fortunately, at least for now (touch wood), the Barclays site works for me on Firefox.
Professional my ass
Bollox. There's no excuse for this breakage, Mr so-called Mr Professional. This is pure crap by lazy or useless developers.Other than IE's broken CSS support, it's pretty trivial writing apps to be cross platform and browser agnostic. Only useless developers and morons hide behind the world's most exploited and non-standard browser.
Get a clue kids, IE javascript is breaking online banking, don't use it to be clever, duh! UK banks are generally awful (crap UK developers perhaps, online banking works fine here in the US - glad I left the lefty UK thank you).
I Can View the Site with Firefox
I use the User Agent Switcher extension for firefox and can access the website just find. Seriously people, do your homework before devoting an article to something that is a moot point.Supporting Firefox is easy
@JayI find it hard to believe that you're a professional programmer. If you were you might know that Struts is a server-side framework and doesn't care what browser connects to it. Also, you'd perhaps know that client-side Java is dead (and works on Firefox) so any modern Java+Struts application is entirely server-side. You might also know that the only significant client-side technology a programmer might use that would make it impossible to support other browsers is ActiveX, which is also dead as a client-side browser platform.
And perhaps if you were paying attention you would have noticed that the author clearly stated that the site works fine using Firefox, so it's obvious that the site doesn't use any outdated IE-only technology. What we have here, in fact, is a company that employs programmers or managers that are still in the Internet stone age. I've worked as a programmer for companies from 72,000 employees to 12 employees and it's quite simple to support IE, Firefox, Safari, KHTML, Opera, etc without too much additional work.
Lazy developers, bad management
*cough* bullshit *cough*. Other banks do it fine (e.g. Nationwide (society) Natwest (bank) etc etc), and I write AA accessible "enterprise" (I hate buzz words) systems that must output valid html multiple browsers using Spring and deliberately no javascript, mostly using css tricks (and the css differences between browsers are not insurmountable). Quite honestly if a bank doesn't make it accessible (screen readers, other browsers etc) then under UK legislation (Disability Discrimination Act) technically they are actually being discriminatory. Whilst likelihood of being sued is low, the sooner this is picked up on and lazy developers and irresponsible managers get their fingers out the better."The cost of programming, testing, mainatining versions of code that are browser specific, etc, is simply too high to take on."
Fox User Agent Switcher gets in :)
Here's a grab of Firefox under Linux getting in with the User Agent Switcher plug-in. No problemo!http://oldexplorer.googlepages.com/foxuseragent.jpg
PM ;)
Just Use User Agent Switcher
Using the User Agent Switcher extension set to "IE 7 (Windows Vista)" mode makes it work perfectly with Firefox.IE:Mac
The site opens fine under IE for Mac, which is probally much worse than IE 5 for Windows, and offers no benefit versus Firefox.Proof: http://i207.photobucket.com/albums/bb99/Moop_stick/IEMAC.png
firefox + linux
I visited http://www.barclays-skills.com/just fine with linux + firefox :-) Here is what
you do with websites that beep off about wanting
IE + win ...
1. Go here --> https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/59
and install the User Agent Switcher addon
2. Then with the addon change your id to IE + win =)
classy
From the error page's source:<!--[if IE 5]><strong>Note: Clearlybusiness content is accessible to all versions of every browser. However, this browser does not support many basic Web standards, preventing the display of our site's design details. We support the mission of the Web Standards Project in the <a href="http://www.webstandards.org/upgrade/">campaign</a> encouraging users to upgrade their browsers.</p></strong><![endif]-->
Uh .... OK.
User Agent Switcher
Just use the User Agent Switcher for Firefox and make them think you're using IE on Windows (no different than how Opera deals with it).It is a limitation of Mindleaders
I am pretty sure that this is a limitation of the MindLeaders player. I am pretty sure it is tied to internet explorer because it uses some windows media player plug-ins.Give them feedback
Go to that website, and attempt to access an invalid URL. You are redirected to clearlybusiness dot com. On that page, they have a customer service number: 0845 601 5962 and email address support@clearlybusiness.com.If you don't like this policy, let them know.
Worked fine for me...
...once I told FireFox to identify itself as IE 7. :)No problems at all.
CGD Portuguese bank
This is an extremely lollable situation, as even a portuguese bank like Caixa Geral de Depósitos allows and actually recommends using Firefox as we access the online banking interface.Also, it's just the most respectable bank in Portugal.
Simple workaround
There is an extension for firefox called 'User Agent Switcher.' Basically you tell firefox to tell websites that it's IE. Do a search on mozilla's site, or link below:http://chrispederick.com/work/user-agent-switcher/
Thats kinda funny
I am a web programmer and I find this hilarious. While its true that it is a real pain in the ass to make everything cross browser and most people tend to code for IE because it is the standard, Firefox is a much better browser.That comment about the rendering abilities of IE is a joke. Especially when your talking anything less than IE7.
IE is holding the internet back 5 years by not properly supporting even CSS1 and there activex http control is almost useless.
In contrast firefox supports everything in CSS 1 and 2 and the httpRequest agent is awesome (XML? text? doesn't matter!). This smacks of corporate handshaking to me.....
jay's a idiot
Hey Jay, ever hear of standards compliance? IE 5 & 6 are not standards compliant, firefix, opera, safari & IE 7 are. You are simply a lazy, out of touch, crappy developer. We live in 2008 now, keep up.Being Helpful
If you use firefox, try this1. Download the firefox extension for spoofing user-agents: https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/59/
2. Restart firefox and goto: Tools > User Agent Switcher > Options > Options... \
3. Click "User Agents" and then "Add"
4. Fill out the window with following info:
***Description: Internet Explorer 7 (Windows Vista)
***User Agent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 7.0; Windows NT 6.0)
***App Name: Microsoft Internet Explorer App Version: 4.0 (compatible; MSIE 7.0; Windows NT 6.0)
***Platform: Win32
basically it "pretends" that your browser is Internet Explorer 7 and is running Vista.
i found it here http://www.i-hacked.com/content/view/246/42/
fix for the problem
just look for a firefox plugin called IE tabs and every time u get a website like this you click on the little firefox icon on the right and it changes it to internet explorer icon and voila you got the site open in firefox without having to fire up internet explorerSwitch To First Direct
Switch to first direct, great bank and they took the care to check each browser for issues upon launching their new site.works perfectly in firefox, IE and Safari.
[Plugs for other banks will be ruthless exterminated in future. Ed.]
Do what?
Jay, you're talking out of your bum.Jay - you're an eedjit
Jay of the "I'm a developer yadda yadda" post:Bull. Banks are not demanding very complicated functionality from browsers. In fact, most banks render nothing more than fairly primitive HTML.
There are many millions of companies considerably smaller and less profitable than banks that support a variety of browsers and require more functionality than a bank does. I run a development team for a small 100 person startup, and the effort to support the three browsers we support (IE, Firefox, Opera) is a very small part of our total budget.
The solution to these IE-only sites
Here's the solution for these evil sites: http://report.dreamhosters.comThat is why IE is not standards compliant
IE is not standards compliant, and this is why, M$ wants to control how we use our computers, since IE is installed on most computers, most people use it, so most websites will support it as their top priority.If it were standards compliant users would be able to acces any site from any browser they want, that is bad for M$ because they would then have to compete.
Just look at how much they had to improve IE6 to IE7 after Firefox gained a (reasonable) market share, if Microsoft played by the rules and did not make up it's own it wold have to start making good software again, and we can't have that...
shame.. but funny comments
Just to add something to the comment of "A message from Barclays"... I hope it was a provocation... because the message was hillarious (same as the one about JAVA,struts,etc producing different applications).... IE has better rendering capabilities :) good one ...please visit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acid2_testNatWest
Natwest have supported Firefox for ages. I've had no problemsIf my bank forced me to use the worst browser that's most hacked and targeted by criminals and people who need to get a life, I'd leave, and find a proper bank.
What's next? ... they'll only accept e-mails if you're using Outlook Express?
IF has no "buts"
Ive never had a problem using Intelligent Finance, with my Firefox browser on OpenSuSE 10.2, as far as im concerned most people want just normal features taht PHP will supportNo Firefox?........
This is quite simple to remedy. Everybody just stop going to there site. Everybody just stop duing buisness with this Microsoft based affiliate. When there costomer base is gone and there buisnes folds i guarentee you whatever version of firefox you want to use with whatever company that picks up this web domain will accomodate you. Theres no need to argue with a company that has deaf ears. Think about it, its just to simple not to work........... Drop Microsoft and switch to linux.It works with the User Agent Switcher Extension
Just try it out with:https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/59
Set your user agent to something like "Internet Explorer 7 (Windows Vista)".
bb4now,
PMC
shouldn't be a developer
if you cant write a website that works on any modern browser and with any font size then you shouldn't be a web developer. It's not hard to do, all this 'all browsers are different' stuff is just excuses for being lazy and not testing properly.Amusing
I use nothing but firefox, except when Micr$haft forces me to use IE for updates.I am a Baqrclays client & have always used firefox to access online banking. Something fishy'ere mate.
Amusingly I am switching banks, perhaps perfect timing??
konqueror browser
my idea would be to configure konqueror browser to act like internet explorer ,go to settings to bottom of list configure konqueror scroll down to broswer identification
check add operating system name
check add operating system version
then click on new
add site url and choose the identification
and go to the site works great happy surfing !
Barclay's
And this is a bank that takes care of your money?I have a hard time working with company's that can't keep up with what is going on with the Web, It tells me how they handle things and how up to date they are.
And when I come up with Sites that are limited to one piece of software then it makes me wonder how up to date the rest of the company is. I try to keep away from them if at all possible .
And as a Web site builder for large company's , it is not that hard to use and setup where the main stream browsers are able to be used.
A web site can tell a lot about a company and how it acts when it is confronted with new Tec.
Easy solution
The easy solution to this problem is to use the firefox user-agent switch addon.This should hopefully allow you to access the website, by pretending that firefox is internet explorer. Note that this may prove to reduce functionality or may not work at all, but it's worth a try
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/59
Works w/ Konqueror if you change browser ID
I decided to do a test, so I told Konqueror 3.5 to tell barclays.com that it is really Internet Exploder 6.0 on Windoze XPensive. Sure enough, the browser rendered the page just fine. I then turned off *all* browser identification, and the same site complained, "oh, sorry, only Internet Explorer on MS Windows is allowed." It's clearly just looking at the browser ID string.Just how much is Barclays getting paid by the Volish Ones to do this, I wonder? Those "co-marketing" dollars are apparently hard at work, I see....
Switch to Nationwide
'Nuf said.Yawn
Yahoo in the US did this too. When will companies realize many citizens of the world do NOT use overpriced OS that underperform?!?Many of us are dedicated Ubuntu Users!
Fireferret?
The title bar says firefox and its called firefox. I found another page on this site that says Mozzerella Fireferret. Whats up with that?hmm..
looks like another "hacker-prone" and "hacker-luring" bank.. hmm.. but if they know how to block non-IE user, they must be good.. or they just found a code in the net and copied it.. heck with it.. Good luck with the money in the bank.. xDSay No to Barclays
If my bank would do such a thing, I would say "No" to my bank. There are plenty of other banks that do not force me to use a certain commercial operating system and / or web browser.Note that making a website work on Firefox is not THAT difficult or expensive. If they would loose, let's say, 10 customers because of this, then that would probably cost them more money than making their website work properly.
Too bad...
Guess I won't be able to have an account there then...Natwest too
Natwest won't let you use any browser other than IE - I've also noticed it will automatically close your IE window down unless it's the only instance of IE open!Fairly reasonable
The site in question is not Barclays online banking its http://www.barclays-skills.com - Small Business Skills Training.The site states and I quote: "We know that a growing number of customers prefer to use browsers other than Internet Explorer and are working to produce a version of the content compatible with other browsers."
Can't say fairer than that - what is all the fuss about?
Just use Opera
There is a switch in Opera enabling the browser to send predefined identifications of FF and IE. The said site doesn't check the browser properly, so the spoofing a la Opera is all it takes.***
Welcome
At Barclays ... we want to help your business soar.
That's why we've got together with MindLeaders to offer free business and software skills training to help you rise to the challenges you face every day, blah, blah, blah...
***
Works like a charm.