Are you forced to buy windows in order to solve certain tasks on the internet e.g. like certain banktasks and to update garmin gps maps and other

[Robert Heller]

At Mon, 15 Sep 2014 10:29:48 -0400 "Ubuntu user technical support,  not for general discussions" <ubuntu-users at lists.ubuntu.com> wrote:

> 
> On Monday 15 September 2014 09:54:05 Nathan Dorfman did opine
> And Gene did reply:
> > On Thu, Jul 31, 2014 at 11:31 AM, user1 <bqz69 at telia.com> wrote:
> > > Are you forced to buy windows in order to solve certain tasks on the
> > > internet e.g. like certain bank tasks and to update garmin gps maps
> > > etc
> > 
> > Just out of curiosity -- what bank tasks are you referring to?
> > 
> > I've used a ton of different (mostly American) banks and other
> > financial services over the years and have never had any kind of
> > problem using their websites from Linux, including: Bank of America,
> > Chase, Capital One, Citi, Barclays, Fidelity, Schwab, American
> > Express, and probably some others I can't remember anymore.
> > 
> > Now, I'm sure someone out there can find one or two things they really
> > can only do on Windows. Personally, I have a Windows installation in a
> > VM just in case this happens to me, and I haven't booted it since
> > 2010. So I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest that it's far from
> > the common case.
> > 
> > -nd.
> 
> I won't name the bank, but they use ActiveX on the front page And they 
> have about 5 digits worth of my money.  Clicking on the login button 
> didn't work, so I demanded and got a link that goes straight to the login 
> page.  And I was doing it all that way, but they could not seem to 
> maintain my ability to print a statement with dates, so I blew up and went 
> back to paper statements until they could do that.  You could see the 
> dates on screen, but they would not print.  What the hell good is a 
> statement with no dates?

I use one bank's on-line banking system, where instead of text for buttons and
links, they use *images* (of text) for those buttons and links. I think this
is because they want to use some font that won't be in Any Browser. *STUPID*
Web Designers. Yes, really, *STUPID* Web Designers -- some Web Designers are
total idiots. I have encounted various website where this is done. There is NO
REASON to do that, *Ever*! Maybe for a text-ish logo [like FedEx's logo], but
never for a piece of straight text (eg 'login' or 'log out' etc.). I'm
guessing you are getting a similar effect, where the 'text' is not really text
or is using a bogus font or the print css is doing something stupid.  On one 
banking website the login page was checking the browser and O/S for a 
supported combo.  *I* complained and eventually switched banks.

I don't believe that any banks actually run their own on-line banking
websites, but contract that out to one of a handful of on-line banking
providers. And these providers seem to all use Mess-Windows Server and IIS.
Other than stupidity relating to misuse of <img> tags (and excess use of AJAX,
and sometimes (i)frame abuse), the only other issue is anoying security
nonsense (eg insisting on passwords with digits and uppercase letters, as if
merely having digits or uppercase latters in and of itself makes the password
stronger and silly challange questions and putting the username and password
on sepatate pages), and the broken Mess-Windows Server tcp/ip stack
(which hits me because I am on dialup and connection timeouts are feature of
my on-line life).

> 
> Cheers, Gene Heskett

-- 
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