[Novalug] can you make linux work with websites that insist on Windows and IE? if so, how?

[Nino Pereira]

Bonnie Dalzell wrote:
> can some one post a list of us governement sites they have required msie?
> 
> i think it might be useful to write to our various congresspeople 
> about this. not only linux, but especially older macs and other os's 
> cannot always use msie and to require it is probably giving an illegal 
> monopoly to ms and/or excluding people who cannot afford msie capable 
> systems from access to public sites that they may need in order to 
> conduct business with the government.
> 

Bonnie,

I made the same point at various times to the people at the different
help desks. They don't think it's illegal. In fact, the solution
offered by the last one I talked to was:

'but, you can go to the public library and use a computer there'.

Quite apart from the extra burden your own Government were to put
on you if you had to do this, the difficulty of transferring electronic
files to the library's computer and the inherent undesirability of
using an open computer for financial information, the answer
assumes that all public libraries have computers that run Windows.

We'd all hope that this is not the case, right?

Nino

ps: for those wondering what the status of this issue is: I gave up.
I went to Microcenter, and purchased a refurbished IBM computer with
Windows XP and IE6 on it. It's not the solution I was looking
for, but it works except that I have to type with one hand: the other
holds my nose.