On Thursday 29 March 2007 03:28:03 pm Billy Crook wrote:

WTF, Why do they care what OS I run?

Perhaps so they can be sure their carefully dropped fewmets of code will be sure to do their dirty deeds on your system. Things like "verifying" that you are a unique user, not a commercial preparer doing a bunch of returns.

On Thu, 29 Mar 2007, Billy Crook wrote:

There's some IRS program called Freefile. If you make less than $52k a year, you can choose any of these companies ( http://www.irs.gov/app/freeFile/jsp/index.jsp) and do your federal return for free online. I used HR block online the last two years, so I was going to again, and I got THIS:

My biggest complaint is why this service is not open to everyone. I am sure people's taxes who make over $52,000 a year was used to help create it.

You could set your browser to lie about what OS (and browser) you're using. However, this skews the results to indicate your preferred setup is not as popular as it really is.

This kind of message is really infuriating, especially so when you can switch your non-standard setup to bypass the warning and it performs perfectly.

--Don Ellis

At 3:28 PM -0500 3/29/07, Billy Crook wrote:

There's some IRS program called Freefile. If you make less than $52k a year, you can choose any of these companies (http://www.irs.gov/app/freeFile/jsp/index.jsphttp://www.irs.gov/app/freeFile/jsp/index.jsp ) and do your federal return for free online. I used HR block online the last two years, so I was going to again, and I got THIS:

We've detected that you're using an operating system that is currently not supported by TaxCut Standard Software.

	 TaxCut Standard Software has been optimized 

for the following operating systems.

	 Win2000, WINXP, Win Vista, MAC OS 10.2.8, 

MAC OS 10.3.9 and MAC OS 10.4.8

WTF, Why do they care what OS I run? It's a damn web application. All they need to do is optimize for the only real browser platform, Mozilla, and It'll work anywhere someone has a web browser. Their inflammatory remarks have angered me, and I want to choose some other company now. Any suggestions?

FYI, Free filing in KS can be found here: http://www.ksrevenue.org/iiwebfile.htm

Missouri does not appear to have any help.

I have nearly completed my taxes using H&R Block on-line service without incident. I will file a problem ticket with them to please update their browser checker for next year to by OS platform agnostic. I will tell them that they needlessly lost some business because of that little problem.

HTH, Jim

Billy Crook wrote:

There's some IRS program called Freefile. If you make less than $52k a year, you can choose any of these companies (http://www.irs.gov/app/freeFile/jsp/index.jsp http://www.irs.gov/app/freeFile/jsp/index.jsp) and do your federal return for free online. I used HR block online the last two years, so I was going to again, and I got THIS:

We've detected that you're using an operating system that is currently not supported by TaxCut Standard Software.

TaxCut Standard Software has been optimized for the following operating systems.

Win2000, WINXP, Win Vista, MAC OS 10.2.8, MAC OS 10.3.9 and MAC OS 10.4.8

WTF, Why do they care what OS I run? It's a damn web application. All they need to do is optimize for the only real browser platform, Mozilla, and It'll work anywhere someone has a web browser. Their inflammatory remarks have angered me, and I want to choose some other company now. Any suggestions?

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