[vox] (OT) Online Banking Using Mozilla

[Michael Wenk]

On Tuesday 23 March 2004 04:12 pm, Marc Elliot Hall wrote:
> I've used Wells Fargo online banking for quite a while now. Until today,
> I've been able to login and access all functions using Mozilla on
> Windows 98 and Windows 2000, as well as using KDE and GNOME on Linux.
> Never had trouble. (In the past, I've also sucessfully used Konqueror,
> although not recently.)
>
> However, today when attempting to access my account information from a
> Win2k machine at work, my connection was refused. At first, I thought
> they were having ssl issues or something; but when the problem persisted
> for several hours (and when I was able to log in sucessfully using
> Internet Explorer), I guessed that this was a policy change rather than a
> technical issue.
>
> To see if my concern that Mozilla not be refused could be addressed, I
> filled out a tech support request (using Mozilla! Apparently, only the
> ssl stuff is restricted...) but received no reply after several hours.
> I then called their customer support number (800-956-4442, for the
> curious) to ask what was up.
>
> Essentially, I was told that Wells Fargo only supports Internet Explorer,
> Netscape Navigator, and Safari. After some discussion, the third tech
> with whom I spoke actually sounded convinced that *he* should be using
> Mozilla instead of IE... but my issue remains unresolved. I asked that
> my inquiry about the support for *standards-based* browsers be escalated,
> and was told that it would be; further, I was told that he would "have
> someone call [me] back".
>
> Has anyone else experienced this kind of reluctance on the part of large
> corporations to support standards? If you have, have you taken or
> considered taking action quickly so that Linux users are not left without
> a wide selection of online banking resources?

I don't blame them in the least.  Look at the # of customers actually using 
the software on a non IE browser vs the # of customers using it via IE, and 
it should be patently obvious where a company will spend its QA manhours in.  
That being I would think someone there would have made an effort to get it 
working using other browsers, but to officially support it?  I would be 
surprised if it was.  

In fact, three browsers being supported is kinda shocking, especially 
considering the # of versions of each browser out there.  

And in truth, were a company to spend a lot of time and energy getting web 
software to work on many different browsers, I would think it less smart than 
getting it working on browsers that aren't widely used, and as such won't 
generate much revenue for that company.  



-- 
wenk@praxis.homedns.org
Mike Wenk