166261 - telebank.co.il / discountbank.co.il / discountbank.net - Israel Discount Bank blocks non-Firefox Gecko browsers

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(Tech Evangelism Graveyard :: Hebrew, defect, P3)

Description

[Shoshannah Forbes]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; PPC Mac OS X; en-US; rv:1.0.1) Gecko/20020901
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; PPC Mac OS X; en-US; rv:1.0.1) Gecko/20020901

This is a bank web site. Attempting to enter it with mozilla (at the url
https://start.telebank.co.il/ ) re-directs the browser to
https://start.telebank.co.il/notIE.htm which tells the user to use only ie for
windows.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. go to the url


Actual Results:  
site blocks mozilla

Expected Results:  
user should be able to lo in to the bank

Comment 1

[Tsahi Asher]

*** Bug 167293 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 2

[Alon Altman]

Updated fields and added information.

It also seems the site blocks SSL agents such as cURL by requring an existing
SSL session with a "session restart" to return a page other than the index.

If you try to bypass the browser check by going to
https://start.telebank.co.il/realindex.htm after opening any other page, you run
into the problematic JavaScript that was used to create the widgets.

I have phoned the bank and they said that they only support MSIE and might
consider supporting other browsers/operating systems in the "future".

An email sent from their web site about the issue remained unanswered.

What is the status of evangalising this bug.

Comment 3

[Alon Altman]

Attachment: HTML + JS from the site - downloaded using mozilla

Comment 4

[Alon Altman]

Attachment: Screenshot of realindex.htm under Mozilla.

I've added a screenshot under mozilla. Notice the "undefined" instead of
textboxes.

Comment 5

[Alon Altman]

From bug 167293:

interesting that when going to http://www.telebank.co.il you get a warning that
the certificate belongs to NetVision (a big ISP in isreal), and then you are
redirected to NetVision's site. this doesn't happen with IE: there you get a
custom 404 error page that allows you to get to the blocking URL.

My tests show that you get a certificate that seems to be a VeriSign
certificate, but with no CN for VeriSign. The certificate is assigen to Israel
Discount Bank, as expected.

Comment 6

[Alon Altman]

I have sent a physical letter to discount bank via their complaints box, and
received the following printed letter:

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Your letter from 23/09/2002

  I have read your letter throughly, and I am to reply you as follows:
  As of today, the access to the bank account via the internet site can be
performed only via Windows operating system and Explorer browser.
  We are working to upgrade the system, so it would be usable with other
operating systems and browser types.
  Discount Bank sees in the direct banking channels in general and the internet
site in specific, a very important communications channel, and therefore we will
do as best as we can to improve the channel.

  Signed: Eli Ratner, 
          Director of customer complaints center
------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Marking Future. Accepting bug.

Comment 7

[Alon Altman]

Accepting bug. I'm corresponding with the bank. Any others intereseted in this
bug should write a physical letter to the bank and put it in the customer
complaints box (same as "al tor" box).

Comment 8

[Shoshannah Forbes]

*** Bug 182866 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 9

[Bob Clary [:bc] (inactive)]

tech evang june 2003 reorg

Comment 10

[Shoshannah Forbes]

Alon- any news here? or should I go ahead and mark this as WONTFIX?

Comment 11

[Alon Altman]

They sent me a letter back that they may consider it in the future (if I recall correctly).  Why WONTFIX? Evang. bugs should not be marked as WONTFIX unless there is no problem with the given site.

Comment 12

[Prognathous]

Alon Altman wrote:
> Why WONTFIX? Evang. bugs should not be marked as WONTFIX unless there is no
> problem with the given site.

I agree that there is no reason to WONTFIX evangelism bugs, if there is no
longer a problem with them they should probably be marked as WORKSFORME or FIXED.

Prog.

Comment 13

[mozilla3eran]

I was recently told by a Telebank phone support rep that "as far as he knows"
there are no plans to support non-MSIE browsers in the near future.

Comment 14

[mozilla3eran]

Annual update:
No change in the site, and according to a Discount Telebank support rep they are
"still considering whether to support other browsers". They also refused an
offer of technical help from [e-mail], explaining they're
perfectly capable of doing it themselves...

Comment 15

[oc666]

Hey, everyone.
The problem is solved.
Discount bank open his accounts for firefox users.
It wasn't published by the bank yet, but he confirm that by email, which sent to me this morning.

Comment 16

[mozilla3eran]

This website now works fine with Firefox (1.5.0.9).
The bug can be closed.

Comment 17

[Tsahi Asher]

this is so stupid. now we see sites that used to block mozilla, starting to support firefox, but continue to block seamonkey! i can confirm that the login page is not blocked for firefox 2.0.0.1.

i sent them a message to that effect.

Comment 18

[Tomer Cohen :tomer]

Tsahi: Any progress so far?

It's written on the secure login page <https://start.telebank.co.il/pw_d_he_p.htm>  that IE6/Win98 is required. 

Comment 19

[Tsahi Asher]

they are as stupid as yahoo (bug 390159): blocking seamonkey but not firefox. anyone tried to actually use it with firefox?

Comment 20

[oc666]

OK. Firefox works fine till the recent upgrade which the bank made lately.
I can enter my account with firefox but all is disabled.
This mean this site need to put back into the black list.

Comment 21

[Daniel Rozenberg]

right now the site doesn't work for me on explorer 7 as well - so it seems that this is a generic bug and not just specific to firefox
(in both browsers i can get to menu items by clicking the tab key, but not by clicking on them with the mouse)

Comment 22

[oc666]

Maybe they build the site only for IE6?
I think maybe I need to change my bank if their QA works just like that :-)

Comment 23

[Tomer Cohen :tomer]

I've tested the site on Ubuntu 7.10 with Firefox 2.0.0.12. The secured site looks good, but not very usable as the links are not crackable. 

The person I've talked to say that at home (ubuntu 7.x) he got it working without any extension, but at work (ubuntu 7.10) it is not usable at all. I found that on our website similar problem have been reported half a year ago (http://mozilla.org.il/board/viewtopic.php?t=3060). 

After changing the general.useragent.override to "Firefox", I got it to block me and order me to download IE6. 

Comment 24

[oc666]

Hey
They upgraded their site.
Works fine on firefox 2.0.0.13 and firefox 3 beta 5.
They still block other browsers (tested with opera and epiphany).
I didn't try to change the browser's identity (cause I don't believe in this trick).

Comment 26

[Chris Lawson (gone)]

As far as I can tell, having "Firefox" in your UA string is enough to get

https://start.telebank.co.il/LoginPages/Login_d_en_p.htm

to appear properly.

If you do not have "Firefox" in your UA string, you are immediately redirected to

http://www.discountbank.net/cgi-bin/inetcgi/discount/front/indexpage.html

from where you can click "English" to get to

http://www.discountbank.co.il/cgi-bin/inetcgi/discount/front/eng_homepage.jsp?src=19322

where clicking "Your Account" gets you to

http://www.discountbank.co.il/cgi-bin/inetcgi/discount/front/eng_show_item.jsp?itemOID=1158376

and clicking "Entrance" under "Private Customers" starts the cycle all over again.

Someone should point these guys to

http://geckoisgecko.org/

and tell them that Firefox is not the only Mozilla-based Web browser out there.

Comment 27

[Prognathous]

The site still works in Firefox but not in SeaMonkey (my browser of choice).

To make sure they're aware of the situation I sent them an email explaining the bug with a short explanation about how to overcome it (sniff for "Gecko" rather than "Firefox"). Let's see what their reply is. If they're not willing to fix this, then I'm closing my account. How's this for tech-evangelism? ;-)

Prog.

Comment 28

[oc666]

Hey
I've written to them two weeks ago and this morning I got an answer (translated from Hebrew):
"This days, the software valid on Microsoft's browser, which is the most common browser.
We are working to add support for other browsers"
(the word software mention and not website; sound like not pro written this).
I answer them. Let's see if this pressure will work. You invite to send them mail too:
https://www.discountbank.co.il/cgi-bin/inetcgi/discount/front/contact_us.js

Comment 29

[Yehuda]

(In reply to comment #28)

> "This days, the software valid on Microsoft's browser, 
> which is the most common browser.
> ...
> (the word software mention and not website; sound like not pro written this).

Just for your information: Any big web site, let alone a bank's website, uses a lot of software. Treating web sites as something that people with no education in software development can build in their spare time is (sometimes) the cause of all these sites that are not compatible with Firefox

Comment 30

[Prognathous]

A short update: The bank replied to my query using their regular IE-centric template (see comment #6). When I insisted on getting some kind of timetable for support of additional browsers they replied that there isn't one.

No problem. I just opened an account with another bank, one that supports Seamonkey - International Bank of Israel (הבנק הבינלאומי), and I'll soon close my account at Discount Bank.

Prog.

Comment 31

[Oren Held]

A collegue of mine claims that the bank has a new site now (he doesn't know for how long), and it works very well with FF. Can anybody confirm?

Comment 32

[Daniel Rozenberg]

Confirmed.
I've been using their new site for a couple of weeks on Firefox 3.0.10 and 3.0.11 on Ubuntu and it looks like everything is working fine.

Comment 33

[Tomer Cohen :tomer]

It is reported that while they allow Firefox users to enter the site, they block other browsers, including other Gecko-based browsers. 

http://hamakor.org.il/pipermail/w3c/2009-September/000118.html
http://linmagazine.co.il/node/view/31826