Chase Bank May Drop Support of Chrome, Opera 398
mwandaw writes "Banking giant JPMorgan Chase may drop support of some popular browsers because they do not 'all offer the minimum levels of security that we require while others may not perform well with our site.' After July 18 you may not be able to access the website with a browser that they do not support. The list of browsers they currently support seems outdated: Internet Explorer 6.0 and higher, Firefox 2.0 and higher, and Safari 3.0 and higher (for Macs only). With usage of IE6 plummeting and concerns about its security well known, the inclusion of that browser seems suspect. On the other extreme, rising star Chrome appears to be left out, too. What does Google think of that?"
Time Warner Cable (Score:4, Interesting)
How #$@#$ hard is it? (Score:4, Interesting)
Why are some browsers not supported? There are two primary reasons--security and popularity. There are dozens of browsers in use today, but not all offer the minimum levels of security that we require while others may not perform well with our site. The security of your accounts and private information is one of our highest priorities and some browsers, especially older versions, are simply higher security risks to use with our site. As for popularity, we continually monitor the types of browsers that customers use to access our site. Based on that information, we know that supported browsers are used by more than 95% of our customers. If a new browser begins to grow in popularity, we will assess and test its security and performance with our site to determine whether or not we should support its use.
Right... Because its sooooo hard to use standards and make a secure site? Lets face it, if you code things right you can support every single browser except for perhaps IE (though they have gotten better). It is pure stupidity not to support various other browsers because they "aren't secure" when you can't give a reason other than they aren't used as much.
The vast majority of security for banking comes from 3 main places. Encryption (controlled by the site owners), Physical/Software security of the servers (controlled by the sites owners) and elimination of flaws in the browser (judging by their inclusion of IE 6... they aren't worried about this).
As a Chromium Developer... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Three words.... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:People still bank at Chase? (Score:5, Interesting)
My first credit card was from Chase. It was on one of those flyer boxes posted on a board in one of the dorms. Not the best interest rate at the time but not too bad. They steadily lowered my rate over the years. I'd call them up and ask for a lower rate and they'd see I'd been a customer for awhile and had a good record and would knock a few points off. it finally settled at 9.9 fixed for several years. I used it frequently, but I almost always paid my entire balance. I did buy my first laptop computer on it though, and that took several months to pay off.
Now a lot of people just throw away those "change in terms of service" notices they get from their credit card companies, but *I* read them. And one day I got a notice saying they were going to jack up my interest rate for no apparent reason. So I called them to cancel the card. She transferred me to someone else that said forget about that, we won't raise your rate. (I suppose I was transferred to a "stop this customer from closing their account" rep)
So last year I got another one. This time they were jacking the rate up to something outrageous like 17%. (from 9.9) Called them again and expected to be put through the same transfer, but this rep was having none of that. I explained what had happened last time and she says no, this one is not negotiable. She explained that "due to changing economic circumstances" they had to raise their rate. I asked her to transfer me to an account specialist, but to my surprise, I got exactly the same answer. So I explained to her one more "changing economic circumstance" they were now going to experience.
It's too bad too. They provided me with good service, and even had some really cutting-edge features for the time. Back in 1992 they had an offer for me to email (yes really) a scan (yes, REALLY) of my picture and my signature, and they sent me a new card, with my picture and my signature on the front of the card. (I had to use a serial port quickcam to make the pics) REALLY nice feature, and nice to have a second photo ID and the signature really big on the front of the card. To this day I don't know of any bank that offers that, though there are a few that let you upload a picture and can have that as the entire face of your card. I need to do that with my current main credit card, an AT&T mastercard. (9.9%)
I've heard though that they classify customers like me as "dead beats" because we don't carry a balance for them to charge interest on. I suppose it's possible that's why I got sacked. It's just a shame to have to cancel your first credit card, that helped you establish credit, that you've had for almost 20 years.
I work at Chase (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Three words.... (Score:1, Interesting)
For Chrome: https://chrome.google.com/extensions/detail/aafciojnlamllgpkpdkbamkfgbofhgcj
As a member of the IT department... (Score:5, Interesting)
Use standards and you won't have that problem? Wrong, because MS doesn't follow the standards. Which means that we end up writing two versions (minimum) - one for standards compliant and one for IE.
Use a javascript package to make IE compliant? Can't. Corporate architecture doesn't allow us to use open source or third party libraries.
End of the day... it's laziness, not security.
Re:Businesses do not understand technology (Score:2, Interesting)
I agree with your point, but the pedant in me can't resist:
Usually software backed up by a large businesses is considered to be a bonus for the "traditional" business drone,
Google?
Re:People still bank at Chase? (Score:4, Interesting)
you typically only get to choose a bank (checking account, credit card, mortgage, car loan) for the first couple years.
I had this happen with my first bank. Smallish savings and loan, a local bank. At one point they said they were going to start charging for the checking account. I went down and talked with them and they cut me a deal. If I started using electronic statements they'd keep the checking free. There was also a "service charge" on my savings account if I didn't maintain a minimum balance, which went away also. Things stayed that way for some years.
Then the bank merged with a larger bank, and suddenly I started seeing money disappearing out of my savings. Now I'd never really actually used it, and only had $50 or so in it, but they were eating about $2/month off it in a service charge. So I called them and they said they'd changed their policies after the merger, and that's how things were going to be now. So picked up all my money and moved it to a local credit union. They take really good care of me.
You'd think things like this would be so destructive to your customer base that they'd have to think twice about it, yet they just do it without batting an eyelash. And so we walk. And they don't seem to care?
Funny, I forgot to take the money out of savings. I stopped checking my electronic statements when I closed my checking account. Anyway, got a notice some time later saying my savings account now had a negative balance. So I gave them a call to laugh at them and tell them they could close the account. I was almost expecting them to tell me to come pay the $1.50 or whatever negative on the account, but they didn't have THAT much nerve. Idiots.
Re:People still bank at Chase? (Score:1, Interesting)
Browser Security Acid Test? (Score:3, Interesting)
Basically, when there's a fairly significant liability there, years of experience and large corporate backing do matter. They maybe shouldn't, but they do.
Sure, but if they can't provide concrete data for choosing one browser over another, then how can you be sure they are making the right choice. I understand their argument, but I have no evidence that they proved these browsers to be unreliable.
What we need is a security acid test, akin to the CSS3 acid test, that is recognized by security and financial institutions, that can be run by browser developers to see whether they meet the mark. If there is one already, was it used and where are the results? If there isn't one, then how can we be sure browsers are being audited in an equal manner? For me the test should be something that any capable security expert could feel comfortable with and include minimum requirements for passing and also "nice to have features" that can give the browser bonus marks.
Re:My cards are with Chase (Score:3, Interesting)
They changed policies months ago so that charge interest based off average daily balance. (Some have even tried using rolling highest balance for the month)
I canceled my card when in 3 months they changed my rate from 7 to 17 to 21 then to 30% interest. Initially I did not care since I pay the balance off each month electronically. But at around then they also started charging interest using a rolling average of the (highest?) daily balance for the last couple months. I went on a business trip, payed off the entire balance, and the next month had hundreds of dollars in interest from my increased "daily balance" despite no charges all due to the previous months trip. The last dirty trick was they started changing the due date. One month it was the 26th the next it was the 16th. (That caught my one-week-early auto-payment by surprise which resulted in a default rate which took me from 30-36. I canceled my card immediately.
Honestly as far as I can tell Case, Citibank, and Bank of America all took the credit reform legislation and inspected the bill saying, "holy shit you mean we can do these things legally currently?" They then implemented every skanky policy they could before the cutoff date as to be grandfathered on all accounts when the legislation passed and thus have their policy survive the implementation of the new legislation. My credit record was basically spotless.
My family all had our rates go up around 23%. Most didn't notice that paying off the balance no longer prevented interest from being charged until I called them and told them to check out their statements. This is happening to people with credit scores over 800!!!
Lets count the way that credit cards profit here. 1) they charge the merchant the first dollar or two of a transaction. 2) They charge the merchant a percentage of the transaction. 3) They charge you interest on the transaction. 4) They game the system to charge you as much as they can.
I am disgusted at this behavior but at the same time there are a few features I love that only these companies seem to offer. (Virtual credit card numbers for online transactions) It drives me nuts that I haven't been able to ditch them all but am just working with another business entity in the same corporate giant.
Re:Businesses do not understand technology (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm not advocating it, I'm saying that it's reality.
How you display your information is dreadfully important, this is only becoming more and more the case now that the internet is being treated somewhat seriously by organizations and marketing and PR departments are getting involved in it.
The idea of not controlling the display of information is positively terrifying to people, they're jobs and they're livelihoods depend(rationally or not) on things looking the right way they want them to look.
In my experience, most Marketing departments would rather people not be able to see a site at all than see it improperly.
Like I said in another post though, this particular issue is almost certainly due to them using an ajax framework which hasn't been updated recently. That list of browsers is a dead giveaway.
FDIC harms small banks? WUT? (Score:2, Interesting)
I agree with most of what you've written, but this is dubious:
Actually, all else being equal small banks have a stability disadvantage. A concentrated customer base means you're less diversified, more exposed to local economic shocks, and more vulnerable to any economic shock because you have less of a capital buffer.
FDIC unfairly advantages small banks by removing stability from the set of criteria customers care about. There are significant stability advantages to being a big organization, but no bank customer will care about those if all of their deposits are insured anyway.