Arnie Goetchius wrote:
Felix Miata wrote:
Arnie Goetchius composed on 2016-07-21 08:10 (UTC-0400):
Daniel wrote:
And Arnie, if you do actually send in a real "Pen and Ink" letter, it might also
be worthwhile mentioning that other browsers, which currently cannot get to the
Chase site because of the incorrect sniffing, could/would also work if Chase
sniffed for the Gecko process, rather than for a particular Browser Name.
Thanks for the ideas. Sniffing for Gecko is the key.
Absolutely. It doesn't do any good to demand explicit support for
Seamonkey, if that doesn't apply to other Gecko-based browsers.
However, I have more notes on that (see below)....
Sniffing for Gecko would be merely a major improvement, still an arbitrary
denier of any browser name which to the site's authors is unfamiliar. Sniffing
for functionality is the idea approach. Sniffing out functionality is entirely
browser name agnostic.
Thanks. I would like to include a link in my correspondence which explains
"Sniffing out functionality". Would the following be a good example:
https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh273397%28v=vs.85%29.aspx
A good link.
Traditionally, I point people to http://geckoisgecko.org/. The links
contained there (especially
http://www.sitepoint.com/article/dhtml-utopia-modern-web-design/4 and
http://archive.bclary.com/xbProjects-docs/geckoGetRv/) are good, but
GeckoIsGecko is aged enough that I think that page does more harm than
good. All the projects there are listed with equal prominence, but the
only ones that I believe are active are Firefox, Seamonkey, and
K-Meleon. As far as I'm aware, all the others are abandoned. And
several I've never heard of, except in the context of this page.
There's no mention of more current Gecko-based projects, such as
Waterfox, PaleMoon (now shifted to Goanna, a Gecko fork), or Lunascape
(which allows the user to select rendering by Gecko, Trident or WebKit).
It really doesn't help to try to convince somebody like Chase that
Seamonkey is a viable (and used) product, when it's presented alongside
dead projects like Camino, Prism or Fennec.
In the meantime, I ran a some tests at https://chaseonline.chase.com,
using both spoofing from PrefBar, as well as installed browsers. I found:
1) If I try a login with a standard Seamonkey Profile (and default user
agent strings), Chase complains about my browser. UA string that I used
is: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; rv:43.0) Gecko/20100101
Firefox/43.0 SeaMonkey/2.40
2) Using PrefBar to spoof, I have no problem logging in, if the UA is
showing:
* default Firefox:
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; rv:45.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/45.0
* Chrome:
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko)
Chrome/49.0.2623.87 Safari/537.36
* Opera
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko)
Chrome/49.0.2623.75 Safari/537.36 OPR/36.0.2130.32
3) I also found that when I am spoofing, after I get past the login
dialog, I can change the UA back to the Seamonkey default, and there's
no apparent problems with further access.
4) I tried a login with PaleMoon 32,, and found no problems with login.
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko)
Chrome/49.0.2623.87 Safari/537.36
5) I downloaded and ran a portable version of Waterfox on my main
working machine. When I logged in, Chase complained that it didn't
recognize my IP, and required emailing of an access code. Once I put
that in, everything else was fine.
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; Win64; x64; rv:47.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/47.0.1
Waterfox/47.0.1
6) I did a login with Lunascape, where I set the browser to render with
Gecko, and didn't have problems. I don't know Lunascape well enough to
know where to see the raw UA (and I didn't try to access a web server I
have access to, to check logs), but Lunascape reports: "Gecko Plugin
Version 38.8.0.27543 / Gecko 38.8.0". I ran this one on a virtual
machine. Running from a virtual machine, a complaint by Chase about an
unrecognized IP, but no problems after I entered the access code.
7) I tried a login with Epic (a Chrome derivative) -- I don't have the
raw UA, but Epic reports that it's running version 48.0.2553.0. As with
Lunascape, I was working from my VM, and Chase complained about an
unrecognized IP. After entering the emailed access code, no problems
with interacting with the site.
I should note that with a successful login, in each case, I get a "My
Accounts" display at https://chaseonline.chase.com/MyAccounts.aspx.
This is interesting, that the only place where I'm seeing browser
compatibility issues is if the UA is explicitly showing "Seamonkey". No
problems with other Seamonkey spoofing other browsers (both Gecko and
non-Gecko), or use of other Gecko-derived browsers. Or in the case of
Epic, a Chrome-derived browser.
Just for the heck of it, I decided to see what happens if I try spoofing
Camino. On this one, no problems with login, either.
Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X 10.6; en; rv:1.9.0.19)
Gecko/2011032020 Camino/2.0.7 (like Firefox/3.0.19)
In this light, I'm wondering if what's happening at Chase is that
they're sniffing for Seamonkey specifically, and deliberately rejecting.
Knowing that the improper browser sniffing issue has been around for
several years, it may be that Chase was a lot more aggressive on trying
to enforce browser brand names. With the newer projects (i.e., Waterfox)
it may be that they're not bothering to try to reject Gecko browsers
that aren't Firefox, but that nobody has bothered to remove code that
singles out Seamonkey.
Although I've previously noted that I'm doubtful that it's possible to
convince Chase to demand Firefox by name, and exclude all other Gecko
browsers, I think you have every right to complain if they're rejecting
Seamonkey, and accepting other non-Firefox Gecko browsers.
Hope this better informs your interactions with Chase.
Smith
