[sclug] [OT] Banking site *Requires* use of Internet Exploiter

[Simon Huggins]

On Thu, Sep 08, 2005 at 03:35:39PM +0100, Matt wrote:
> * Paul Wright <wrighty at gmail.com> [2005-09-08 14:06:27]:
> > Obviously I'd be much happier if they did a cross-browser version but
> > I don't see anyway of doing that with current technologies without
> > maintaining two or more versions, basically one for each browser.  (If
> > anyone has any suggestions for how this could be accomplished I'd be
> > happy to hear them.)  As you mention, the egg site itself is entirely
> > workable with Firefox - it's just money manager that needs the ActiveX
> > part of IE.
> Why not use a Java Applet?

C|N>K

One of our suppliers had a java applet for a helpdesk system.  It ran in
many browsers absolutely fine.  But only on a particular JVM revision
(1.4 I believe) which was absolutely useless.  Also the failure mode was
that it wouldn't fill a drop down list on the wrong JVM type.  It didn't
come up with a "you are running this on the wrong version of java"
warning or anything as sensible as that.  *sigh*

I would hope that it is possible to write java applets that do work
nicely across JVM versions and browsers but my experience of them so far
has been shockingly bad.

Why can't people just write proper standards compliant sites that render
everywhere eh?

Government PAYE, tax returns and VAT returns work fine for instance.  My
online banking does (Royal Bank of Scotland).  My company's CGI does I
hope ;)

I noticed recently that friendsreunited.com didn't (I couldn't add
myself to a school - the whole point of the site I though) and got this
reponse from customer services:
	We are aware that Firefox users are currently experiencing
	various minor problems using our site.         

minor eh?

	Our technical team are currently working on ways to fix these
	problems and we hope to have all of these issues fixed as soon
	as possible.
	 
	Your patience and co-operation whilst we work to resolve these
	issues is much ap preciated.  In the meantime, please let me
	know the full name and address of the school and leaving year
	you would like your name added to and I will do this for you.

This is like saying "we know the calculator you have doesn't work with
multiplication but when you want to multiply just drop us an email with
the numbers and we'll get back to you the next day with the results".

Sorry, I think I must be in a ranty mood today.

Simon.

-- 
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