[TriLUG] TurboTax for the web and linux

[Andrew Perrin]

My assumption is that they're not checking the browser or version, but
rather the OS. I say that because:

1.) The screen that pops up lists Windows and Mac browsers
specifically; and
2.) From memory of last year's return, once one logged into the system the
URLS contained strings that included, for example, "nn4_ux". When I work
from my wife's Windows machine now, they include "nn4_w98" or something
along those lines. So my guess is they've simply decided to drop the
_ux-enabled ones.

I filed a bug with TurboTax; no response yet.  I will see if I can get
Konqueror up and running and will let you know if it works to change the
browser ID string.

This practice, of course, flies in the face of the whole point of web
apps, which are supposed to be cross-platform. Sheesh.

ap

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Andrew J Perrin - andrew_perrin at unc.edu - http://www.unc.edu/~aperrin
 Assistant Professor of Sociology, U of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
      269 Hamilton Hall, CB#3210, Chapel Hill, NC 27599-3210 USA


On Tue, 22 Jan 2002, David A. Cafaro wrote:

> No luck with the stock communicator, mozilla, or galeon from Redhat 7.2 
> (with redhat up2date patches).  I haven't tried Netscape 6 yet (which I 
> have installed on a 2.4 kernel before, I installed netscape 6.1 on a redhat 
> 7.1 machine which I thought was a 2.4 based kernel righ....I'll check at 
> work, if so I still have the .gz file on that machine for netscape.)
> 
> At 11:00 AM 1/22/2002, you wrote:
> >On Tuesday 22 January 2002 08:27 pm, you wrote:
> > > Folks,
> > >
> > > Last year I did our taxes on TurboTax for the Web from a linux machine
> > > (debian potato, then running probably Netscape 4.0x or something like
> > > that). I tried to do so again this year and found that they've turned it
> > > off for any non-Windows/Mac browser.  Questions:
> > >
> > > - Any ideas for devious, or not-so-devious, ways to get around this?
> > > - Any ideas for convincing them to change policies?
> >
> >I checked the site out.  They are saying that a Netscape 4.06 and higher (not
> >4.6) is supported.  I have a 4.61 loaded on a RH 6.1 box.  It did not work.
> >The latest release of Netscape for Linux 2.2 is 4.78.
> >
> >What floored me is that Linux 2.4 is not supported by Netscape.  What's up
> >with that?
> >
> >Anybody got a Netscape 4.06 and up (excluding 4.6) they can click into
> >http://www.turbotax.intuit.com/welcome/perm/icomnews/welcome.htm
> >and report results? You've got to click on "Use TurboTax 1040" to complete
> >the test.  Success would be to NOT get the message about not supporting your
> >browser.
> >
> >Mike
> >
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