Is there a way to spoof which browser I’m using? I typically use firefox but my bank insists I use netscape. How can I make my bank think I’m using netscape while I’m really using firefox?
Mucked that one up. Is there a way to make a website think I’m using IE instead of netscape? My bank insists I use IE and I’d prefer netscape (firefox). Sorry for the confusion.
You can spoof the User-Agent string; here is a way to do it manually; this is fine if you don’t need to do it very often. Some Firefox extensions also have menus to allow you to send different User-Agent strings; the PrefBar toolbar is one of them.
However, this doesn’t fix the various other incompatibilities (e.g., in differing JavaScript implementations) between browsers, and if the website is detecting your UA prior to sending content that will be appropriately rendered by your browser, then you’ll probably just get a different error message.
Have you considered contacting your bank and suggesting they make their web site standards-compliant? That way, it shouldn’t make any difference which browser you use.
FWIW, I fired off emails to my bank and Costco when my non-IE browser failed to work. I like to think my emails were the last straw for both because both web sites now work with FireFox (now) and when I used to use Netscape (then).