Interactive Investor UK have recently up-dated their website, which doesn't work properly with Safari. Interactive's technical team say I should change to Chrome as Safari doesn't support their website fully. Leaving aside that a major equity trading platform should be giving a competitive advantage to Alphabet Inc over Apple Inc, what is Apple doing about this? I use OS 13 and Safari 16.2.
MacBook Air 11″, macOS 10.13
Yes, Safari sometimes has "issues" with some web sites. The following may be helpful to know. If you are unable to properly access certain web sites and possibly getting a message that your browser must be updated, this is not an unusual situation. The reason is that web site providers and software engineers write their software to work based on standardized specifications. Some web sites and older browser software may not be compliant. One thing that may work is to upgrade Safari or you can use another browser that does work such as Firefox or Chrome. They can be individually updated as needed. It is important to know that Safari is installed as part of the operating system and it normally it cannot be individually updated. Safari is typically updated when the computer's operating system (OS) is updated or upgraded. Finally, even if you are able to update Safari, there is no guarantee that it will be compatible with every web site. This is why many of us have more than one browser installed.
Yes, Safari sometimes has "issues" with some web sites. The following may be helpful to know. If you are unable to properly access certain web sites and possibly getting a message that your browser must be updated, this is not an unusual situation. The reason is that web site providers and software engineers write their software to work based on standardized specifications. Some web sites and older browser software may not be compliant. One thing that may work is to upgrade Safari or you can use another browser that does work such as Firefox or Chrome. They can be individually updated as needed. It is important to know that Safari is installed as part of the operating system and it normally it cannot be individually updated. Safari is typically updated when the computer's operating system (OS) is updated or upgraded. Finally, even if you are able to update Safari, there is no guarantee that it will be compatible with every web site. This is why many of us have more than one browser installed.
Investor56 wrote:
Interactive Investor UK have recently up-dated their website, which doesn't work properly with Safari. Interactive's technical team say I should change to Chrome as Safari doesn't support their website fully. Leaving aside that a major equity trading platform should be giving a competitive advantage to Alphabet Inc over Apple Inc, what is Apple doing about this? I use OS 13 and Safari 16.2.
You are using the latest versions of the Apple software, so you have done all you can there.
I have seen some sites that don't work properly with Safari, including some from my employer, where there are thousands of employees using Macs! There can be three reasons for this:
(1) The web site developer is not adhering to the standards properly or completely. This is common when they want to add special functionality or security to their web site.
(2) Apple's Safari is not adhering to the standards properly or completely. This used to be more common, now it is somewhat unusual to find, but still a possibility.
(3) There is a bug, either in the web site code or in Apple's code.
Unfortunately, we usually don't have enough information to discern between these three possibilities. I think item (1) is the most common, however, of the three.
At my company, when we encounter this, we just use a different browser, as Ronasara suggests. Some U.S. government sites actually state that users should use Chrome or Firefox, and specifically not the native MacOS or Windows browsers.
I doubt your investor website is trying to give some sort of competitive advantage to Alphabet over Apple. Any one company like that won't have much influence over the market. Both companies (apple, Alphabet) are big enough and strong enough that they probably wouldn't care anyway. I think it is more likely that your investor website is trying to add certain unique functionality and its implementation happens to not work well with Safari. Maybe your best approach here, if you really want to keep using Safari, is to contractor your investor website and give them feedback about their recent changes.
There's no way for anyone here to know what Apple may be doing about it, or even if they're aware of it.
You can send Apple feedback if you like.
You are overthinking the situation. Technology changes over time, Sometimes tool providers are a little slow maintaining currency with respect to emerging technology. Use a tool that works for your situation. Change your tool set when needed. I have three browsers installed and I use the one that works in a specific situation. Next week some changing technology may require me to change the browser I use until the old browser catches up.
I don't at all imagine that Interactive Investor are intentionally "trying to give some sort of competitive advantage to Alphabet over Apple" in the sense of influencing the market for either's software. The advantage is a financial one - both companies' shares are very heavily represented in the portfolio's of private investors - the customer base of Interactive Investor. So investors are being told by their own stockbroker (who should be neutral) that Apple's software has some lesser functionality than that of Alphabet. Thus the recommendation of Chrome is a potentially market-distorting issue in a regulated stockbroker. In addition, moving to Google's browser is itself not a neutral competition issue given its integration with search and mail functions (which I am already in hock to) - note that Firefox was not recommended.
The matter has risen precisely because I gave negative feedback to Interactive in respect of the changes to their website, which seem to have been done by people more interested in the making it look pretty than any thought as to how a portfolio manager actually works - I use the site for equity investment for a private pension scheme with shares in companies quoted on the UK, US and European stock exchanges. They have removed the ability to independently analyse the portfolio associated with a specific currency of investment (US dollar, Pound Sterling, Euro) utilising currency conversion within the portfolio view (this is not the browser issue), and prevented the downloading of CSV files of the portfolio in Safari (which is - I have verified that it works in Chrome).
When I go to what I believe is the site in question.
The initial result is as per this link below.
When I challenge Their Use of Cookies
Do not have an account with them to Test their assertions
I second Bob's comments. Well said.
Interactive Investor Website
