The new FAFSA web protocol for applying for student loans allows the use of Firefox3.6 on PCs but not on my Linux computer. Any idea what the Federal government is not comfortable with an Open Source solution.
When I try to log into the FAFSA to start or update a financial aid form I get a message saying I have a non-compliant browser. I am using Firefox 3.6.13. I contacted them and they send me a list of compliant browsers which includes all kinds of options (IE, Firefox, Safari, Opera, Chrome) for PC and Mac (as applicable).
Any idea why open source is an issue.
All Replies (4)
The most likely cause that your non-standard user agent that has Fedora/3.6.10-1.fc13 is causing it:
Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.9.2.10) Gecko/20100920 Fedora/3.6.10-1.fc13 Firefox/3.6.10 GTB7.1
- Web sites or add-ons incorrectly report incompatible browser
- http://kb.mozillazine.org/Resetting_your_useragent_string_to_its_compiled-in_default
A standard UA of Firefox 3.6.13 on Linux looks like:
Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.9.2.13) Gecko/20101203 Firefox/3.6.13
After scouring the web and dealing with the VERY unhelpful FASFA helpline...the solution I found was to download Opera and apply through it. You will find the link for Opera download on the "incompatible browser" message on the FASFA site. Good luck!
You can install the portable Firefox 3.6.19 version to access websites that do not work with Firefox 5+.
The fact is there's no good reason that the FAFSA website shouldn't work on Linux. Many browsers provide a way to change the user-agent string to spoof stupid websites like this one into thinking you're running an OS/browser that you're not.
For example, you can pass the following flag to Chrome/Chromium:
--user-agent="Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 5.1) AppleWebKit/535.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/13.0.782.220 Safari/535.1"
Et voila, you're a Windows XP user as far as the FAFSA site is concerned.