Dave Thorp's Blog

I remember having this problem running the beta versions of firefox 3 and now the same issue is happening with firefox 3.1 (soon to be firefox 3.5).

Basically Natwest (and presumably RBS) online banking has the most atrocious browser detection routine which essentially looks at your browser user agent string and if it doesn’t match the strings it’s been told work with the site it refuses to let you in. Now this is stupid because the vast majority of modern browsers work with Natwest no problems however each time a new (or a beta) version comes out Natwest assume that it wont work with online banking.

So once again it’s time for my little trick to make Natwest think it’s working. This involves the following steps

• In the location bar type “about:config” and press enter
• You’ll then get a warning about dragons. As Peter Jones isn’t that scary just ignore it
• Find the preference “general.useragent.extra.firefox” and delete the b3 bit so it reads “Firefox/3.1″
• Laugh in the face of Natwest’s stupid browser detection system
• Log into internet banking
• Send me all your money (just kidding)