NatWest Bank

[jimny99]

I am a Chrome user since it's introduction, and have been using Chrome to access my NatWest on line bank accounts with no problems. Overnight on Tuesday Nat West changed browser access and barred Chrome usage. Any comments please

[Duchy Original]

There was a Chrome update earlier this week. Chrome automatically updates itself so you may not have noticed. The NatWest site was not compatible with this new version when I tried it. My guess is we just need to wait a while for them to support the new stable version.

I had to reinstall the older version of Chrome to get access to the NatWest site again. Since my Chrome has just updated itself again, I'll have to do that a second time.

I got the older version from here: http://www.filehippo.com/download_googl ... 7f1643b4a/

[Duchy Original]

My guess is we just need to wait a while for them to support the new stable version.

In case this is not 100% clear, I mean we probably just need to wait for NatWest to support the new stable version of Chrome.

[jimny99]

Thanks Duchy, but when I phoned them (getting through eventually) they told me they had never 'supported' Chrome. So we must have been getting in by accident still Grrrr )

[Duchy Original]

It turns out there's a workaround - Chrome lets you override the User-Agent string which tells sites which browser you are running. This is done with the --user-agent option given to chrome.exe when it starts. If I run:

chrome.exe --user-agent="Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US) AppleWebKit/530.5 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/2.0.172.43 Safari/530.5"

I can get into the NatWest website.

This opens up the interesting possibility of running Chrome betas - I'd thought I had to stick to stable in order to use NatWest.

Let me know how you get on. I can provide more help if you need it, but since you're a Chrome user I'm guessing you're technically knowledgeable.

[jimny99]

Straight in - thanks. Does it stick ?

[jimny99]

Sure does - thank you very much

[jimny99]

So if you want to use say Opera just add it to the string

[Duchy Original]

Straight in - thanks. Does it stick ?

Not exactly sure what you mean by stick, but Chrome won't remember the User-Agent next time you start it. It has to be started with that --user-agent setting every time otherwise it will send its default and the NatWest site won't let us in.

I have a shortcut on my desktop that includes the --user-agent setting; I haven't worked out how to get the default web browser link on the start menu to include it, but that's no biggie.

[jimny99]

Thanks Duchy got it now - thought there were other browsers in the string for some reason. The default is the new Chrome v 3.0.195.21 and we have to overwrite that till NW changes their acceptance routine. Thanks again