Sometimes I wonder if people really realise what “WWW” stands for. Surely “world wide” implies that everyone should be able to access your site. Not just people who use one particular browser on one particular operating system.
The one particular browser is, of course, Internet Explorer and the one particular operating system is Windows. In this case, it’s my bank, First Direct, who have done it wrong.
I’ve been using their internet banking service very happily from various browsers on Linux. Today I see that they’ve introduced an extra service called “internet banking plus”. On reading the details, it’s a way for First Direct to show you the details of any other (i.e. non-First Direct) accounts that you have. Sounds interesting so I click the sign-up button.
But of course it doesn’t work because I don’t have the right software. The main problem seems to be that this new system is written as an ActiveX control. And only Microsoft browsers running on Microsoft operating systems can run ActiveX.
Now I can understand that the vast majority of First Direct’s customers use IE on Windows. But I wonder what the trends look like. With more and more people browsing from PDAs, mobile phones and TV sets, there must come a point when these people become a sizeable percentage of a site’s users. Not to mention all the Mac and Linux (and other “minority” operating systems) users who are currently locked out.
Surely at that point they will need to consider reimplementing the system in something non-proprietary. Which must make you wonder why they didn’t do it like that in the first place? Is it so much easier to do this in ActiveX than it would be in Java?
What makes me most angry about this is that when sites don’t work in a particular browser then many users don’t realise where to place the blame. I try hard to convince Windows users that Mozilla (or Firefox) is a better browser than IE. Sometimes I convince them to give it a try. But when they find sites like this that don’t work, they don’t blame the people who created a non-standard site. They blame the browser for not being able to display the site properly.
So I’ve written to First Direct pointing out the problems with what they’ve done. I’ll let you know if I get a response.
I was having similar problems with my bank. I tried to log in using Mozilla on Linux and it wouldn’t let me in. I then tried Mozilla on my Mac, and it worked just fine. After a little more experimenting, I realized my bank’s website will not authenticate customers if their USER_AGENT passed in by the browser has Linux in it. Thankfully, blocking on the USER_AGENT is pretty easily gotten around with Konqueror.
I had the same issue with first direct. I desperately want to get rid of IE altogether, so i sent an email to them. My reply is as follows:Thank you for your message dated 16-Jan-2005, regarding the new internet banking plus service.Unfortunately, it is not possible to access the internet banking plus service using alternative operating systems and browsers. The service requires the use of certain ActiveX controls which allow your computer to make the internet banking plus service a secure and highly interactive experience. As a result the service is currently only available using Windows and Internet Explorer.In addition, the ActiveX controls are used to create a Digital Safe and run the functionality in the internet banking plus service on the computer. At present, other operating systems and browsers do not support the use of these ActiveX controls.We may review this at a later date and appreciate you taking the time to send us your comments. Your message has been passed to our e-Commerce Project Team.Please let us know if you require anything further.RegardsMatt PinderElectronic ServicesFirst Direct have been a really good service to me , but they’ve really got to learn that sooner or later people aren’t going to stand for it. If i was a MAC user then I would be so insulted.
Being a recent convert to Firefox I have just got round to doing something as basic as trying to print my First Direct statements – surprise surprise – you can only do that with IE as well.
Got a replay from First Direct as follows:07-Feb-2005 22:32To: Dave KingabyRe: Internet BankingThank you for your message dated 07-Feb-2005, regarding the above.When printing statements from Mozilla Firefox the browser will cache the page onto the hard drive before printing the statement. On secure sites it is always possible to save the contents and therefore Firefox may have problems printing.Internet Explorer is designed to send the contents of a page directly to the printer without caching the details on the computer.Please let us know if you require anything further.Ketan RanmalElectronic Services