back to article Lloyds TSB's online banking system shows no love for Firefox

Many Lloyds TSB business customers who use Firefox as their default browser are currently unable to access their online banking accounts. Several readers have contacted The Register telling us that the service is throwing up an error message when they attempt to logon to the site via the world's second most popular browser. …

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  1. Flocke Kroes Silver badge

    Dont bank online until Lloyds gets a clue about security

    http://www.securecomputing.net.au/News/157767,nsw-police-dont-use-windows-for-internet-banking.aspx

    http://voices.washingtonpost.com/securityfix/2009/10/e-banking_on_a_locked_down_non.html?wpisrc=newsletter&wpisrc=newsletter&wpisrc=newsletter

  2. David Knapman

    I just tried www.netscape.com

    And I can't find anywhere to download Netscape Navigator...

  3. MDZawadi
    Happy

    Works for me

    OK, just read this and cant see what the issue is. I use firefox on my works windows PC and I use firefox on my linux laptop and have never had a issue. At work I use 3.5.2 and at home I use 3.0.

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Happy

    LloydsTSB supports Opera, Chrome and Safari though...

    I use those regularly and there's no problem.

  5. Steve Davies 3 Silver badge
    Linux

    Mozilla ? How many people use that this decade

    Seems like they are stuck in the dark ages. Par for the course for these muppetts. Took me 4 months to get a new PIN from them. Gave up in the end and moved to a bank that does support Firefox.

    AND given the advice that has been floating around this week about NOT using Windows for Internet Banking, I wonder how much of that £5B that HMG is giving this mob will end up in Nigeria?

    Tux because you know deep down it makes sense (At least for Internet Banking...)

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Happy

    Opera

    No problems with Opera 10.

  7. jon 44
    Happy

    Fsck that

    You forgot their press release:

    "This bank supports the use of insecure browsers only. In the case of identity theft, fraud or other malicious act.... it's your fault, not matter what the circumstances. k thx"

    Banks are funny :D

    If mine did this then I would complain, complain again and then move bank to somewhere with a brain.

    How the hell this got this far is beyond me but suggests the IT illiterate CIO/IT director is more than retarded and down right dangerous. Like most then.

  8. The Original Ash
    FAIL

    Aaaand the Netscape website...

    ... Encourages you to download Firefox!

    http://browser.netscape.com/

  9. Ken Hagan Gold badge
    FAIL

    Helpdesks -- why?

    Since Lloyds TSB have supported Firefox for *ages*, it is inconceivable that they've taken a Top Level decision to withdraw support. The helpdesk must simply have taken your correspondent to be a complete idiot who could be fobbed off with a load of bollocks whilst they (the helpdesk) went away to find out what had really happened.

    Gee, thanks. For the record, Mr Helpdesk, my opinion of you is even lower.

  10. Ivan Headache

    It's working fine for me

    with Safari (on my Mac).

  11. Number6

    Security?

    Why would anyone use IE for secure applications? I think Lloyds TSB needs to have a thorough examination of what it recommends. I suspect their IT department is a bit out of date with what browsers are current, plus the fact that Firefox out to be capable of anything that Netscape is/was.

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    No problems here...

    Running 3.5.3 on centos and it works fine..

  13. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Down

    Not shocked

    Given what I know from the inside of the HBOS and lloyds take over. The infrastructure for Loyds is ten years old.

    Modern DB's and server networks using the latest protocols are being binned in favour of Windows NT and windows 2000 because that is what Lloyds have. As Lloyds bought the HBOS major share, they go forward with what they want.

    However it is all sourced to IBM anyway and HBOS had in house developers, it will all be done under IBM's rules and they don't like "change"

    I pity anyone who is a customer of either bank, it will all change for the worse.

  14. David Cotterill
    Linux

    Not just firefox.

    It also dilikes my browser of Choice - Opera.

    And woe betide you if you use a decent operating system.

  15. Andrew K Jones

    It can work ...

    ... if you go into private browsing mode.

    It still works on 2 of my pcs - xp home & pro with FF 3.0.14 - without going into private mode.

    However on my other 2 pcs - xp pro with FF 3.5.3 and Vista 64 Ultimate with FF 3.0.14 - it only works in private mode now.

  16. R Callan
    FAIL

    lloyds.com/any stupid people

    I checked as you suggested using FF and Konq and noticed that the file extensions are .asp, meaning of course that they are using Microsoft. It does not bode well for their system security.

    I also wonder how they take the recent recommendations from both sides of the Big pond that on-line banking should be done with non-installed OS's, as the live CD's that I have seen do not include either Exploder or Netscrape.

  17. ACcc

    No problem

    It worked fine for me. Logged in fine just before I saw your piece. Checked again just now and it's still okay?

    FF portable, 3.5, user agent switcher off.

  18. Sir_Bobalot
    Paris Hilton

    Oh the delights of Windoze...

    ...I've just checked mine using Firefox on Ubuntu with no issues whatsoever. Paris cos their policies on compatibility are clearly lucid and well thought out...

  19. Anonymous Coward
    Flame

    Pretty standard fare, really

    Banks - they're all bollocks, especially Lloyds Banking Group who recently notified me they'd be moving my account to a simpler one (with no credit interest and massively higher overdraft charges). Simpler, sure, and also very profitable no doubt. But it will also mean a current account move for the first time in my working life. Still, if this is an indication of their idea of support, I'll be happy to leave.

    Usual crap, I guess - it's hard to make a site work properly in IE, so they just bin everyone else and focus on the IE crowd. Idiots.

  20. sagepe
    WTF?

    Works fine for me

    I use Firefox on Linux and OS X to access Lloyds online banking and have done for years, and I've never had issues. I logged on only this morning without problems. I do have NoScript blocking clickshift, which is mentioned as a possible issue in the forum you linked to, but I wonder how many people are actually affected by this?

  21. Bilgepipe

    Eh?

    People still bank with Lloyds TSB?

  22. moonrose

    LloydsTSB problem

    It's not just business accounts - it's personal ones too. I can't get in via Firefox 2.0.0.20 (XP) but can from Firefox 3.0.10 (XP). So they've cut off older Firefox browsers. Which makes the netscape bit even more baffling. I have not yet been able to test Firefox (Ubuntu) but I will be doing...

  23. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Your Life

    "Your life" followed by a big red cross. Like it.

  24. Shane 8
    Thumb Up

    Personal users

    works fine on personal users...maybe ill steal the phrase from the iPhone for FireFox users.

    "Cant get on Lloyds TSB business with Firefox? Theres an addon for that!".

  25. Anonymous Coward
    Unhappy

    @ AC 10:24

    I did many years at Lloyds and they were ahead of the curve when they developed the .COM site, but they were crippled when they merged with TSB and couldn't continue updating their systems. Core Lloyds infrastructure dates from the eighties and the TSB stuff is older and cr@ppier! They should take the chance afforded them by the new merger to chuck the lot out and start again.... but they won't. Too many people have their power bases tied up in the status quo. Rant.. etc...

  26. Anonymous Coward
    Happy

    Dont use ie/for linux users:

    http://browser.netscape.com/releases

    stop complaining and install that now!

  27. mmiied

    works fine here

    verion 3.5.3

    windows 7 trial

  28. Hatan Skaaf
    WTF?

    Not as bad as Abbey

    I've just tried it with FF 3.0.14 on XP SP2 and it's fine.

    Has anyone seen Abbey/Santander's efforts at online security? Their single logon page asks for your Personal ID, passcode and registration number all on one page with no challenge/response - if you've got a keylooger you're fscked. Not to mention that it keeps saying I'm using an unsupported browser when I use IE8 (I know, I know...)

  29. Anonymous Coward
    WTF?

    Well...

    No problems for me :)

  30. fifi
    FAIL

    the other end of the scale...

    My bank, FirstDirect support every browser I use, and they also ensured the UI was compatible with the iPhone within only weeks of the release of the jesusphone.

    Why other banks can't do this, I'll never understand

  31. mark 120
    FAIL

    you could see it coming

    LLoyds are trying to integrate all the HBOS systems at the moment. They've taken the decision to more or less ditch the more modern HBOS systems and integrate all their functions into the ancient Lloyds systems, with inevitable comedy results.

  32. N2

    I dont belieeeve it

    Lloyds TSB using ASP for online banking, the silly bankers! (with a silent W)

    Im off elsewhere

  33. Michael

    works here

    ff v3.0.14 on ubuntu

  34. Anonymous Coward
    WTF?

    @ AC 10:47

    WTF are you talking about? TSB always had the most modern systems of all the banks e.g. circa 1990 they could actually credit an intra-bank transfer immediately, unlike any of the big four, including Lloyds.

    ObWorksForMe: Chrome, Windows Vista x64, no problems, same as always. Perhaps a minor not-really-worthy-of-a-news-item snafu on parsing the user agent string?

  35. JaitcH
    Black Helicopters

    Lloyds Must Use The Same Programmer as HSBC!

    I try to bank with HSBC and it's not-so-secure web site which includes a secure messaging system.

    Because their software crew screwed up, people can only use the most basic characters otherwise, when you try to send your message, it complains you have used illegal characters.

    One message I received said that when I use a < or a > character it can mess with their Java scripts. Even the more basic, free, messaging system can send the whole keyboard set - but I guess HSBC and Lloyds try to to things the hard way.

  36. James 5
    Unhappy

    Lloyds-TSB was working

    with Firefox 3.0.14 until a few days ago.

    Now I get the reported error message. What the hell have L-TSB done to screw up the system?

  37. system11
    FAIL

    Teasted a few..

    Firefox 3.5.3 on Vista 64 - works

    Firefox 3.0.14 on Ubuntu - works

    Firefox 3.5.3 on RedHat (work desktop) - sticks in a loop at login, used to work

  38. Dave Bell
    WTF?

    Not the only one.

    I've seen similar support claims elsewhere: shockingly old versions of Internet Explorer and Netscape Navigator as the alternative.

    Since neither are currently available, I wonder if their liability exclusion would hold up in court. But they have more money to pay lawyers,

  39. Haku
    Thumb Down

    TSB

    Weren't they the bank that liked to say YES ?

    Now they merged with Lloyds it seems they like to say "We really couldn't give a fuck", and that's from personal experience in dealing with those pillocks.

  40. Can't think of anything witty...
    WTF?

    @Fifi

    In terms of customer service, there is a reason that many organisations say that they want to "be the First Direct" of whatever area they operate in - I've heard that they are really quite good.

    By the way, it's quite easy to change banks these days - usually one phone call and it's done (so i hear). In fact, probably easier than installing and living with MSIE... Yet people hardly ever change banks.

    Banks are a business providing a service. If you don't like the service, move your business.

    Funny old world.

  41. CD001

    meh

    Just means they've not updated that particular error message in the last 5 years - no-one had seen it before since they'd not screwed up whatever it was they they screwed up to trigger it in the first place.

  42. Anonymous Coward
    Flame

    Banks of the Britards

    Suspend that surprise for a moment, Britards! Even though your political masters own large chunks of these banks on your behalf, their chums will never be brought to account when it comes to ripping you off with their supposedly necessary charges and general extortion. And heaven forbid that the government's chums at Microsoft be disadvantaged in any way by having publicly-owned entities support actual open standards.

    While the rest of Europe gets to send money around at minimal cost, it's all "have to send that account transfer request to London for manual entry in a ledger by someone old enough to have known Jesus personally (or perhaps a first-generation COBOL programmer of similar vintage), and that will be £25 for the trouble" from the banks of the Britards.

    Now meet the new Minister for Banking and Finance: the Sheriff of Nottingham!

  43. Fluffykins Silver badge

    Trust Lloyds?

    About as far as I could chuck the Stock Exchange building.

    Unsolicited phone calls, ignoring requests to stop and advice that the person they were trying to contact didn't live there any more.

    Promises - repeated oh, so many times and in writing too - which were broken.

    Calls not returned

    money disappearing

    Letters sent to addresses advised long ago as no longer current.

    And that was just my son.

    I did have a Lloyds credit card but after benefit of contact with them I decided it simply wasn't worth the risk.

    Even then the bank wouldn't accept a signed written instruction to close the card account, because it "wasn't secure" - I did ask how a cheque (you know, signed written instruction) worked if I sent it through the post, but I never did get an answer.

    Fsckwits

  44. Richard Mason

    Works sometimes

    It works with some of the machines I use and not others.

    Desktop at home, FF3.5.2, Win2K, only works in Private mode, worked fine until about 10 days ago.

    Laptop at home, FF3.5.2, Win 2K, works fine all the time.

    Desktop at work, FF3.0.14, Win 2K, works fine all the time

    Other desktop at work, FF 3.5.3, XP SP2, only works in private mode.

    To Shane 8, this is a personal account I am trying to access, not a company one. We use Natwest Bankline for our work banking and that works on all 4 of my machines, at home and work.

    All the machines have the same add-ins, NoScript, ABP, FlashBlock, ShowIP and DownThemAll

    I had the "we only support Internet Explorer" from their help desk as well

  45. Anonymous Coward
    Troll

    @ AC 11:13

    TSB did have a psuedo realtime update facility as a result of their requirement to cobble together the 14 ancient pre-relational Unisys systems that their core accounting system was based on. This was given as the reason they would not migrate to the mid nineties rewrite of the core Lloyds accounting system. Both banks are running on their old duct taped 70's and 80' systems becase of the decision to can the rewrite (after p1ssing away £55m on it!) The system is bad but the TSB bit is the worst of it!!

  46. Simon B
    Heart

    HAHAHA! Do u expect Lloyds and secure to be in same sentence?

    HAHAHA! Well no surprise from Lloyds there! Just another example of why I hate them :-) Use an insecure browser, or a date one, or the most installed. Do not use anything rthat might be new, upcoming, securER, 2nd most popular etc etc.

  47. Razorback
    Linux

    Firefox will work with IE Tab

    The IE Tab addon will open the website and allow you to browse with Firefox. I know of four banking/business sites here is the USA that are only accesable with IE Tab since Internet Explorer 8 is a no go for those sites.

  48. Chris 12
    FAIL

    Doesn't bode well for HBOS...

    If Lloyds decide to move HBOS infrastructure to their systems and thereby breaking compatibility, then I'm off.

    I thought this kind of thing stopped a long time ago.

    Does User Agent Switcher fix things?

  49. David Barrett

    Interesting

    I bank with both Lloyds and Bank of Scotland...

    There are a few people above commenting that thr LTSB site is using ASP and that the Decent HBOS systems are being dumped in favour of the ancient LTSB ones... I dont think (from looking at the site) that this is correct.

    HBOS Internet banking has always been .asp files, LTSB has always been .ibc files.

    HBOS dont allow you to have special chars in your password, LTSB do.

    So if the article is correct (which by the way I cant confirm as it works for me on My PC using FF, IE and on my iPhone) then what is actually happening is the LTSB stuff is being shunted over to use the HBOS system.

    Of course this is based entirly on me using both banking sites over the last few years, I dont know what is actualy happening within IT at either of these banks.

    It is odd though that it seems to work for the majority of people... Please tell me its not people running Betas of firefox that are complaining?

  50. Alan Bourke
    Thumb Up

    @David Cotterill

    > decent operating system.

    Works fine on WIndows 7 for me.

  51. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    @Firefox will work with IE Tab

    Do you know how IE tab works?

  52. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Get rid of Lloyds, not Firefox...

    In my direct experience, Lloyds is the worst bank ever .... and in the UK today, that's saying something.

    Their online security is marked by far more hype than actual expertise. I wouldn't bank online with them any more with ANY browser.

  53. StuT

    Works fine on FF 3.5

    Just read your article, opened a new tab and logged on fine to Lloyds Banking using Win XP / FF 3.5....

  54. logist

    FF3.5.3 on XP Pro SP3 fully updated today

    Works fine with NoScript active - they don't need script privileges.

  55. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Safari 4.0.3

    Didnt like that, so I changed the user agent to IE8 (in develop menu), and it worked.

  56. A J Stiles
    Thumb Down

    @ R Callan

    I use ".asp" extensions on a web site I designed. Doesn't mean the server's a Microsoft one, though! It's ordinary Apache 2 on Debian, but with a mod_rewrite rule that changes "foo.asp" transparently to "main.php?content=foo". And "main.php" then does different things depending on $_GET["content"] .

    Anyway, what's the point of internet banking? I go to a bank for precisely two reasons; either to pay money in, or to draw it out. TTBOMK neither of those are possible over the Internet.

  57. DJV Silver badge

    I thought it was just me!

    I've got several computers and 2 of them (my main XP PC and Win7) stopped working under Firefox last week (though another older one running XP still worked fine). I tried a system restore to a few days previously but that didn't fix anything.

    On the XP machine I then backed up my settings (using MozBackup) and completely uninstalled Firefox including deleting any directories it left behind. Then I did a reinstall of Firefox from scratch and tested LloydsTSB again - no problem. However, I noticed that if I restored all of the backup then the same problem returned but just restoring the essentials (bookmarks and saved passwords) it worked ok. I then manually re-installed all my add-ons and checked the LloydsTSB site after each install but nothing broke it. The Win 7 one (which is actually running under VirtualBox on the main XP PC) is still borked - but as this is an unlicensed, unactivated test I'm not too worried!

  58. Dave Foster
    Pint

    Kaspersky issue

    Firefox 3.5.3 is OK with TSB site, the only issue I have is that the virtual keyboard in Kaspersky has stopped working with Firefox. It still works with IE though. Kaspesky claim to be aware of the problem but aren't doing a fat lot to sort it.

  59. mark 120
    Thumb Down

    RE:

    Re : David Barrett

    "There are a few people above commenting that ...the Decent HBOS systems are being dumped in favour of the ancient LTSB ones... I dont think (from looking at the site) that this is correct."

    The few remaining people working in Halifax would tell you otherwise - HBOS kit is being dumped in favour of replacment by Lloyds. Timescale is also ridiculously short (about 2 years, last I heard)

  60. Ben Cockburn
    Go

    Lloyds and TSB

    I used to work at a Lloyds TSBs call centre a few years ago and it likely boils down to when Lloyds bought the TSB. TSB had a whizzy real-time consumer focused system, whereas Lloyds had an ancient clunky batch-processed system. As a result, when they first got internet banking the LTSB service would shut down between midnight and 4am while the Lloyds bit processed the days' transactions.

    Lloyds then migrated all the 'Lloyds Heritage' personal accounts about 6 or so years ago onto the TSB system, but it wasn't able to handle some of the 'business-specific' functionality that the Lloyds system used so they kept it on for business customers.

    As far as I am aware the business and consumer units are developed separately, and as a personal customer I haven't had any problems with the LTSB service. Quite the opposite - the system is quick, you can download statements, navigate around it while using the 'back' button (that so annoys me about Smile) and don't need that damn card reader that Barclays and others are so fond of. I've tried Opera, Firefox and Chrome on the personal banking service and it works fine. Viva TSB!

  61. Chris Hedley Silver badge
    FAIL

    @AC 10:47

    I've no doubt the TSB had some antique equipment, but I don't think it's entirely fair to blame them for the current state of things: as an ex-TSB customer, I noticed the overall quality of service take several steps backwards when Lloyds took over.

    As for the current problem, I noticed that I was unable to login until I cleared my cookies & cache, then it was fine. But still unimpressed with the degree of incompetence both in that I had to do that, and that they claim Firefox is unsupported and are encouraging customers to compromise their security by using IE. Then again, I don't think I can really expect too little from a company that thinks that running a financial system on Windows is a good idea.

  62. davefb

    not working?

    worked for me yesturday... again, previously used IE , chrome , firefox , safari(yeuch) and not had any probs..... just tried again, firefox on mac (3.5.3).. works okay ?

  63. Jamie Jones Silver badge
    Go

    Mr

    Works fine for me too:

    Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; FreeBSD i386; en-US; rv:1.9.1.3) Gecko/20090924 Firefox/3.5.3

  64. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Down

    The worst thing is...

    They will end up modding the site so it works specifically in (say) IE, Firefox and Safari; and when new browsers catch on (Chrome?) it won't work again. If they just kept it simple and built it according to standards, it would work in anything *and* be futureproof. Why does nobody get this? Christ.

  65. Anonymous Coward
    Badgers

    @A J Stiles 13.27

    Why on earth would you do that? What is wrong with displaying .php ?

    You can use mod_rewrite to get stuff like $_GET vars so if you just want to hide what script language you use why not do what java does and put things like .do and .random etc

  66. gerryg
    Coat

    Those that do not remember history...

    http://www.theregister.co.uk/2002/10/23/online_banks_retailers_shut_out/

    There Lloyds were described as "penguin huggers" which while not strictly true certainly indicates that they were not dependent upon peculiar Microsoft code then. This still seems to be the case.

    As someone that has banked online with them since 1999 with various flavours of SuSE/openSUSE I can tell you the site has only ever got more Linux friendly (now even the instant messaging thingy works on Konqueror whereas I had to use Netscape and then FF for that.) I only used Konqueror out of obduracy, it always worked flawlessly with Firefox.

    While I'm no great fan of any help desk, when I was badgering them about the IM thingy I did get a "we do know what you're talking about but we've got no plans" drop dead, as opposed to "use IE" drop dead.

    For those of you questioning security, more recently Lloyds survived a Which? examination

    http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/08/27/online_banking_fraud_survey/

    last time I looked they were on NT4 - which if I recall correctly, along with 2000, was a least worse Microsoft option.

    I hold no shares in Lloyds, they haven't kidnapped my teddy bear, they have seriously annoyed me in so many ways, but if you are having a problem with their internet banking it seems to me that it's a PEBKAC thing or the more delightfully offensive 1 - D 10-T problem

    Mines the one with the horse in the pocket (can we have two logos please? If it were OK for Monty...)

  67. Tom Smith 1 Silver badge
    Go

    Ok here

    FF3.5.4 on XP, works fine.

    (and as it happens I've never had any problems with Lloyds, but then I've never had much money for them to loose)

  68. Ashe 1

    Like Many others

    Working just fine here for me too. FF 3.5.3, Win 7 RC.

    As much as I have reason not to like LTSB, I think this isn't quite as imple as it appears if some FF works and not others. The support people.. who knows. A bunch of tech support lie to me all the time. Which would be less worrying if they werent my employer.

  69. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    The usual bo**ocks about IE being insecure...

    For all those spewing the same rant about "compromising their security by using IE", educate yourself a bit better. IE8 in secure mode is more secure than your beloved, holier than holy FF.

  70. Mr Spoon
    FAIL

    @ Andrew K Jones

    Thanks for the private browsing mode tip, saves me having to boot a Windows VM to boot IE. ;/

  71. Ricky H
    FAIL

    another red fail icon from me

    FAIL

  72. dark1here

    Firefox compatibility

    I have had the same problem with an on line stockbroker, which only supports IE. I have made a formal complaint to the EU. There is absolutely no point in forcing Microsoft to unbundle IE from Windows 7, if competitor browsers are not allowed. I suspect that their code is suspect so that it is not robust

  73. Jess

    They are still in my good books

    for replacing my soggy Communicator 9500 with a nice shiny Blackberry Bold :)

  74. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Down

    Broken for me

    I'd noticed this a day or two ago with 3.5.3 and Win XP. In my case I enter my username and password, click continue and it returns me to the same username / password prompt screen, sans password with no error message or explanation. If I switch to the IE rendering engine with IE Tab all is fine.

    Another reason to leave Lloyds...

  75. Alan B
    Thumb Up

    Working fine here

    I use FF 3.5.3 on XP SP3 with NoScript running, and have no problems whatsoever, and that is on two desktops and two laptops, all running the same OS with NoScript.

  76. DeepThought

    Bye Bye Competent Banks

    Stopped working for me. When I rang the help desk the bloke was surprised that Firefox wasn't working so I suspect it's just IT's complete incompetence - so common sadly today in big organisations.

    Don't think this is a one-off. Trying to get to the help desk was an heroic effort, involving getting trapped in loops. Not long ago they announced you couldn't add a new payee without getting a mobile phone confirmation - great idea except a few days later I added one in a few minutes without the promised check. I rang back to say "Thanks for adding that, but you weren't supposed to" but they gave me some bollxx about "Ooo. our mysterious process does work in the background you know." But of course it didn't.

    It's very sad. They were a good bank but are being killed by IT - no doubt offshoring or outsourcing; they usually finish off IT departments.

  77. Anonymous Coward
    Grenade

    Banking insecurity

    FF&LTSB Works for me too. Does it maybe only lock out old firefoxes or FF on Macs?

    UK online banking can't compare to European standards anyways. 10 years ago they used transaction numbers (TAN) on the continent. You'd get a sheet of 50. The online banking would ask you for a specific one before any action, and when the sheet was used up you'd get a new sheet. And no one had to be afraid of trojans while banking. Too smart an idea to travel 1hour on a plane in 10 years?

  78. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    What really happened...

    Here's the low down...

    About a year ago LTSB decided to outsource all their internet development and support to Indian consultancies. There is a nominal UK presence of old staff but they are not allowed to develop, are on the whole overworked and demoralised after watching their team-mates being offloaded.

    What you're seeing today is the latest cock-up which has occurred since outsourcing happened - DeepThought outlined another classic above which was hailed as a great success by the management - but failed miserably first time and has yet to be rolled out fully months after it was supposed to be. There are many, many more examples but I suspect I've said enough already.

    The best bit - all indications are outsourcing is the future for the combined LTSB HBOS so keep looking out for more cock-ups ,a ton more UK cash in offshore consultancy pockets, and what's the odds on some large scale UK IT redundancies next year?

  79. Anonymous Coward
    WTF?

    Huh!

    What are you people on about, Vista 64, with Firefox 3.5.3, NoScript and Adblock work fine, with the Lloyds site.

    JaitcH,

    If a site chocks on reserved characters, like '<' and '>' character, in entered text, then their developers should be tarred and feathered for being too lazy, incompetent, and unprofessional, to user/write HTML/Javascript escaping/unescaping code; it isn't hard, done it myself, and not even for a major site!

  80. Sam Radford
    FAIL

    W3C

    Nobody's mentioned the real problem. These sites aren't W3C compliant. If they were, then any W3C compliant browser would work.

  81. Lozz
    FAIL

    Bunch of muppets...

    I had a text from them (well, presumably them as it said it was from "LLOYDSTSB") yesterday saying: "Identity fraud may be closer than you think. When times are hard, don't make it easier. Visit www.lloydstsb.com/security ".

    Amusingly, if you actually follow that link (and please don't think I'm THAT stupid to click on the text messge - I manually typed it in!) you end up on a page with a link to their Online security http://www.lloydstsb.com/security/online_security.asp page where they say:

    "At Lloyds TSB we’re committed to making your online experience as safe as possible. So in order to keep yourself secure online it is extremely important that you:

    Never take emails or text messages at face value, even if they look like they have come from your bank. Remember – a legitimate Lloyds TSB email/text message will:

    – never direct you to a web page that asks you to type in security or log on information,

    – always quote the last four digits of your account,

    – always greet you personally using your title and surname.

    Never click on any links within an email or text message if you are in any doubt about its source."

  82. Polly Purvis
    Unhappy

    LLoyds TSB and Firefox

    Unbelievable - maybe this is when I finally move my account from Lloyds !

    Polly

  83. Richard Jukes

    FTW

    Lloyds FTW. And it does look like the personal side of Lloyds online banking is being moved to either the HBOS or TSB system - as debits/credits are now appearing in real time rather than being refreshed at 4:00 in the morning.

    I have never had a problem with lloyds, they are great. Their security has not been amazing in the past, but with the recent additions of chip + pin machines on the counter I am feeling a lot happier, and their website requires a numeric username that is issued by lloyds, an alphanumerical password and then three charectors from the accounts security phrase. I think personally we need to be issued with USB hardware key's as an additional layer of security.

  84. Anonymous Coward
    Happy

    works here

    Windows XP Home, SP3, Sunbelt VIPRE, Firefox 3.5.3, with NoScript, Adblock Plus,Ghostery, and RequestPolicy addons. cookie setting disabled by default with Lloyds in the site exceptions list. NO problems at Lloyds TSB site. FF set to clear history etc at closedown. Ghostery set to block Omniture and WebTrends tracking on the Lloyds site (as well as Adsense, Google analytics and Google Adsense here).

    Of the banking sites I use, I find Lloyds TSB the easiest and most reliable. Hate Halifax and Alliance and Leicester sites.

    Maybe they are detecting old/insecure browsers in which case I take my hat off to them.

  85. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Llyds works OK here....

    Firefox 3.5.3 works perfectly OK here with Lloyds TSB.....

  86. jeanX
    Thumb Up

    Lloyds TSB

    A person complained 'what's the use in internet banking?'.

    To those disabled, it's a great resource.

    To the not-disabled,

    it's the pleasure of not writing checks,

    of not having to stamp and mail it.

    If I had to write checks out,

    it would take away from the rest of life.

    I think internet banking is here to stay.

  87. Georges

    Works fine from safari on iPhone

    But it works fine from my iPhone.

  88. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    Lloyds went down the crapper...

    ... when they merged with TSB.

    I remember the service I used to get when I was a student and for a few years afterwards. Lloyds were excellent. Then they started consolidation when they merged with TSB and the personal service started to disappear. As an example, I remember an occasion when I arranged for a change in overdraft which they agreed to do, but didn't process it on the computer. When I went over my old overdraft limit they sent my account to another unit which refused to do anything until it was back in order - despite it only being there because of a mistake by LTSB. The branch said they could do nothing, the account was no longer under their control. They then cancelled all my direct debits on me and I ended up getting a total of £1200 of bank charges before I got it all sorted out. It then took me over a year to get that money back. That was a full month's salary for me at the time and money I could ill afford to have had stolen from me. Eventually it took a small claims court action to get a proper refund.

    As soon as I got my money back I immediately moved my accounts, and LTSB see nothing of my money...

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