I’ve run a small business for over 10 yeas. I use linux. I’m grateful to the community and I use FOSS where possible.
I have had some issues over the years, but have always been able to get around them (except CAD in 2013), but recently I’ve had issues with my government (UK). First they introduced ‘making tax digital’ and told me for years that I would have to buy windows only software (there was no legal option on linux until a few weeks before the deadline (https://www.comsci.co.uk/100PcVatFreeBridge saved the day). The UK Government didn’t create a free solution or any route to that as they don’t want the source to be open for making tax digital so accounting software companies have made a killing!
This week my internet banking stopped allowing payments, it no longer works in firefox (I’m guessing). On the telephone they asked me ‘what search engine I was using’+ and advised to use google.
What is the best UK business bank to use if you use linux to run a small business? Do I have to use Chrom(e)ium? Does anyone else use linux for business admin? Is anyone (Freesoftware foundation, etc) thinking about the creeping legislative changes that make it literally illegal to use FOSS and linux?
I wanna be an ally, but its so tiring.
+ browser ≠ search engine. Yes, I’m pedantic, at least I didn’t confuse them by saying ‘quant’ or ‘duck duck go’, OK!?
Hmm I didn’t know the UK was THIS bad.
I don’t know if the UK is worse than anywhere else (?)
I’m in Canada and use Linux full-time without any such problems whatsoever. On rare occasions I use Edge instead of Firefox, and that’s it.
Well it surely is much much worse than my country by the looks of it.
Which is?
Bad? It’s a couple of decisions made by organisations or politicians who are ignorant of free software alternatives and open standards.
Certainly better than the US’s tax system, where you have to pay to file your taxes or at the least, have to spend a lot of your time working out complex tax submissions each year.
In the UK, your income tax is automatically paid by your employer when you earn it. Unless you’re self employed, you don’t have to submit any tax information, ever.
Taxes are not the only things that matter, mister/miss. In the US you at least aren’t legally forced to use Windows and I’m not even talking about the fact that the US supports genocide.
I’m not in the US - and who was talking about genocide? We’re talking about tax and it’s software here.
The original topic wasn’t about tax either.
Have u tried changing user agent? Get an add-on on Firefox with a similar name and change to chrome. The website will now think that u’r using Chrome. U could even change ur displayed OS if it has that big of a problem with Linux.
Firefox also has a built-in list of user agent overrides for websites that don’t work on Firefox for no reason.
You can create an issue here, and maybe they’ll fix it at some point. Not sure what the normal turnaround is for fixes like this though, could take a while.
Thanks - I had not thought of this. I’ll give it a go… [edit: no dice :(] It works in chromium, so there is a solution… its just tiring to remember which browser to use for which site.
If you do find their site works on a other browser (and I mean, the browser, not due to an addon, etc.) then complain to the company / bank / etc.
If they take your complaint seriously then I’d persevere with them… if they don’t then they’re not customer focused and your business (money) goes elsewhere.
if they don’t then they’re not customer focused and your business (money) goes elsewhere.
Yeah, let’s NOT pay taxes!
/sUnless you’re talking about the bank, in that case they’re literally here asking for a good alternative bank.
I found for sites that I have to run in Chromium I use Tools -=> Create Shortcut, then Run in Windowed Mode. This puts a shortcut in your app list for the site, and runs it without menus like a web app. It helps me since my brain treats it like the company’s application vs site.
I gave up and used a Windows VM for such shenanigans. It’s hard when even the government doesn’t want to listen. This is a good project which bridges the gap -> https://github.com/Fmstrat/winapps.
I’m also based in the UK. I don’t run a business but have occasionally encountered problems trying to use Librewolf on the web, especially with Noscript on.
I tried to use Qubes to separate my activities into VMs but I found it difficult. So I did my own, less extreme, approach using KVM.
I created a virtual machine which only has Chrome on it. This is what I use for accessing my bank, Paypal and doing online shopping.
I have a second machine I use for Whatsapp and email and finally a third with Librewolf for general web browsing.
Each uses the same VPN service but different servers.
I only use Freetube and Retroarch on my main machine.
This is on a very beefy Thinkpad I essentially use as a desktop in my office. I use a smaller machine downstairs with VNC on it as a remote when I’m sat on my sofa.
This sounds smart
This sounds ridiculous. So much work and overhead just to usea web browser?
It’s not just browsing discussed there. Re-read that again with cybersecurity in mind… online banking shouldn’t be done whilst you’re sharing a browser with tiktok (as an example)
Yep, there’s private / incognito modes, but they just drop all the local session data, they’re not any more secure.
online banking shouldn’t be done whilst you’re sharing a browser with tiktok (as an example)
Why? Be specific because unless something has gone horribly wrong sites can’t access data from other sites or tabs unless they’re cooperating. In which case they do so with session data.
And you could simply have a separate Firefox profile rather than spinning up an entire virtual machine.
Neat, Mozilla’s VPN supports setting servers on a per-container basis.
Though gotta watch for DNS leaks apparently.
XSS springs to mind.
And spinning up a VM (or container) is not that hard nowadays.
This does absolutely nothing to defend against XSS.
This is the problem with paranoia-based security. You create needless overhead thinking you’re “more secure,” but you’re not. Not in any way that really matters, at least.
This is what Firefox containers are for. Put the predatory sites in a container so they can’t see out of it.
They can’t “see out” of their own tab either. Websites can only access data in the browser that they create.
Sure they can, with cookies or tracking pixels for example.
It’s not that much work. I created a VM which is running the same distro as the host. I removed all of the apps except for the terminal. Then I cloned it for each VM I need.
The Whatsapp/ email client VM and the Librewolf VM start with my OS so it’s like having them in separate windows. The others I only start if needs be.
It’s a lot of effort for the benefit you get, which is practically nothing. Especially considering there are even easier ways to get the same result
Such as?
Just use tabs they can’t access each other’s data. Or use a tab session manager. Or separate Firefox profiles.
I don’t trust Chrome, Zoom or Teams, but sometimes have to use them. I will keep them in a separate VM but will look into Firefox profiles.
I think the key part here is that it’s a guess on your part whether using Firefox is the cause. Do you get any specific error when using the website? Or does something just “not work”, such as you click a button and it does nothing?
Also, I’ve run into stuff like this before, and my best bet has been to be flexible about using other browsers to work around issues. I would suggest testing the banking website with Chromium (or even Chrome). If it works, file a bug with Mozilla (https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/file-bug-report-or-feature-request-mozilla) and just use Chromium/Chrome for only that website until the bug is fixed.
This will allow you to still do business, while still participating in open source via a helpful bug report that could end up benefitting others as well.
It works on chromium, not firefox. I guess I should be more flexible. It is likely that the bug is in the bank’s site, so I wasn’t sure about putting in a bug report. The website pauses on the ‘loading’ animated icon, when you try to navigate away, it tells you ‘Your session has expired’. It hasn’t been fixed by changing the user-agent (assuming I got it right). I don’t know if the bank would give them a dummy account for testing, but I’ll file a report anyway.
If it works on chromium I’d consider that even if it is a quirk on the bank website, chromium is handling it cleanly and allowing you to use the site. That’s something we probably want incorporated in Firefox. I’d encourage submitting the bug report to Mozilla, and don’t assume too much about what they can/cannot do!
My bank blocked “firefox” at some point on debian. Then it was because the version of firefox presented it self to be too old (because debian) to the bank so they blocked me. Firefox was up to date on security pathes, but the bank did not understand that and blocked.
I remember the good old times when testers has to check if their sites work on Chrome/Firefox/Opera/Safari/Edge.
Slam an Edge user agent up in there.
Do you use an ad blocker or privacy extension? I’ll just throw out there I don’t think it’s right, but I’ve had to disable adblock to get some banking site stuff to work
Also, please feel free to answer if you aren’t based in the UK, I assume this isn’t a UK only problem, but I’m based here.
Can’t speak to the specific sites that you use but I’ve personally found firefox user agent spoofing results in almost every site that didn’t work on firefox suddenly magically working if they think you are on chrome.
I’ve found this to be the case a lot, too. I also spoof my OS because a lot of government sites will refuse to work unless it says Windows. It’s stupid, but here we are.
yes it is. I have tried messing with user agent now. Chromium works on linux, not firefox. :(
Librewolf does this out of the box
If you use Mettle, the phone based bank, you get FreeAgent for free. FreeAgent is a really good web based accounting package that works in Firefox. They gave a useful accompanying API and can do payroll, VAT, end of year and director self assessment. It’s great.
Governments should not require the use of proprietary software. If they try to refuse. I don’t live in the UK but in the US I think you could easily make the case.
I think in that case they would say they accept paper.
Tangential:
I‘m running my own IT company since recently and am transitioning to exclusively using FOSS. I still have some things I need to work around like my iOS phone. It already has a linux successor but its not finished yet. Pretty promising though. My plan is to put a fixed percentage of profits to open source projects.
What is the Linux successor?
Its a oneplus 6 with postmarketOS.
Sweet
This is not tangental - I am heartened, my hope is that this would become normal. Despite my moan, it isn’t that bad and I’m sure I would have had different IT headaches on windows - security comes to mind.
I still use proprietary android software on my phone, but I try not to do anything secure on my phone (this is also getting harder as banks are insisting that I convert to apps)
Thanks! I‘m currently working with a customer who uses microsoft cloud stuff and windows. Honestly, I would have been done with my work after 20 minutes if he were on linux. Instead I‘m at 8 hrs and a full blown storage solution just because his hardware is incompatible with each other die to windows/microsoft BS.
I can not stress this enough: there are lots of issues on windows which require costly support while the issues on linux usually require a search engine or a friend with some linux experience.
The downside of postmarketOS at this point is the camera functionality. We need to get that working and we‘re golden. On the oneplus 6 I‘m working, its the only major thing that doesnt work. Otherwise the phone is pretty ready.
I’ve been Linux in the desktop for years. You really don’t have any choice other than to be a little bit flexible.
More times than not it turns out to be a plugin that screws over the site. Here’s my general path:
Won’t load in Firefox? Disable privacy badger and ublock origin
Still won’t load? Try it in a private window with no extensions loaded
Still won’t load? Move over to brave.
Still won’t work? Disable Shields
Still won’t work? Straight to a vanilla copy of edge, (a vanilla copy of Vivaldi would also be reasonable)
Just last night I ran into a problem with my ADP work portal. Things worked fine for ages, All of a sudden my password wouldn’t work. I went into private mode My password now works but loading the actual page netted me a blank page
I opened it up in brave and it just worked outright.
Always use a separate Firefox profile for banking needs.
I am not in the UK, but wound up biting the bullet and using QubesOS for my business machine. It’s kind of like a more straightforward to use everyday set of VMs. I have the windows qube there for running CAD/CAM and the sadly sometimes necessary Chrome install. I know this isn’t an ideal solution, but it is the best that I personally have been able to come up with without going through the headache of dual booting, especially when dealing with either govt stuff, need Chrome for crappy websites my clients sometimes force me to use, or actually needing proprietary software that I have licensed for my business (MasterCam in my case).
Maybe you can use some German bank. They allow one to interact with their API for free. I use GNU cash for it. Though I doubt that you can file your taxes via GNU cash and be aligned with current UK law. You would need to check it for your own.
Is the free API part actually true for Sparkasse? I was not able to find an API solution for them. I did find something, but beyond a certain step, there wasn’t an actual API.
https://www.aquamaniac.de/rdm/
Gives you an adapter and an standalone tool. All banks should use the same API, apparently.
I’ll take a look, thank you
Should be everywhere. I’ve only tried it with DKB.
https://www.bundesbank.de/en/tasks/payment-systems/psd2/psd2-775954
So you can actually get transaction information of your own account via an API via psd2?
try winapps
I’ve found HSBC to be ok using Firefox on Linux. I don’t know if they have integrations with any accounting software, but the web access works well, and you can export your transactions for processing locally.
ETA: I’ve run small business accounting on Gnucash, I found the learning curve a bit steep, but once you ‘get it’ it’s handy.
This is interesting, and meets my needs. I tried Gnucash, but the double entry bookkeeping was a bit to advanced for my small-business’/smooth-brain needs (amortising my stock of utility bills seemed a bit excessive! - though I am sure I was doing it wrong)
