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Vanguard

Vanguard is a mutual fund company.
These gripes are about a web browser inquiry function on their web site.  

Is my browser good enough? 

Use of the secure areas of the Vanguard web site requires a web browser that supports the highest level of security. This is good. In techie terms, the web browser must support SSL and 128 bit security. To assist in determining if your web browser meets these standards, Vanguard provides a link for you to click on. 

In theory, the resultant web page will say either Yay or Nay for your web browser. In reality, the browser check does not work and has not worked for a very long time. Hence, these gripes. 

I first noticed that the browser check doesn't work on February 6, 2001. As of this writing (May 16,2001), it has been over four months and it still does not work. I told Vanguard about this problem twice.  The second time, they acknowledged that they were aware of the problem and were working on it. That was March 20, 2001. Two months later, it still does not work. 

To see this for yourself, start at the Vanguard home page www.vanguard.com 
In the left hand column, click on About Our Site to go to this page 
In the left hand column click on Browser Guide to go to this page where there is a graphic link

This blue Browser Check button has taken me to different web pages over the time that I have been testing it. 

http://www.vanguard.com/?browser_check    (not secure)  
https://majestic3.vanguard.com/browser_check (secure) 
https://majestic2.vanguard.com/browser_check (secure)  

Clicking on these links returns a bad URL. The exact URL has varied over time (see below), but it is always invalid. 

More than anything, this problem is one of poor web site management. 

• How could someone at Vanguard put the browser check functionality into production without checking it? 
• How come no one at Vanguard is in charge of periodically monitoring this function to insure it still works? 

Internet Explorer 5 and Netscape Navigator 4 return different errors when presented with the bad URL. 

Netscape Navigator says it could not locate the server when presented with the same URL.   The Netscape description is more accurate.

 The obvious problem with a typical URL returned by the Browser Check such as 
https://majestic4.vanguard.comnull/cgi-bin/SEMS/browser.cgi?browser_ok.jsp 
is that the domain name ends with "comnull" rather than "com". I guessed that the "null" did not belong there, but deleting it did not result in a valid Vanguard URL either. 

Problem Log  

I first tried this in early February 2001. Not expecting it to end up as a gripe, I didn't note the exact first day. The first time I started keeping track was February 7, 2001. Most of the time, I tested it with IE5 with 128 bit security which should have passed the Browser Check function. 

On February 7, 2001 it failed with these URLS:  
  https://majestic4.vanguard.comnull/cgi-bin/SEMS/browser.cgi?browser_ok.jsp 
  https://majestic5.vanguard.comnull/cgi-bin/SEMS/browser.cgi?browser_ok.jsp 

February 8, 2001. Failed again. I'm guessing that Vanguard is not aware of the problem because it won't show up in the web server logs as a page that failed to load. Because, the URL does not end with "vanguard.com" their web servers probably disavow any knowledge of it. 

February 9, 2001. Failed with https://majestic5.vanguard.comnull/cgi-bin/SEMS/browser.cgi?browser_ok.jsp 
 I modified the URL to https://majestic5.vanguard.com/null/cgi-bin/SEMS/browser.cgi?browser_ok.jsp  (adding a slash) but the resultant page said "an error has occurred".  

February 10, 2001. Failed with https://majestic4.vanguard.comnull/cgi-bin/SEMS/browser.cgi?browser_ok.jsp 
Its time to tell Vanguard.  I click on the 'contact us' link. There is a phone number for web site tech support but no email address. It's not surprising that web site without an email address for the webmaster or for reporting problems will have a problem linger for days and days. Poor management. 

February 11, 2001. Failed with https://majestic4.vanguard.comnull/cgi-bin/SEMS/browser.cgi?browser_ok.jsp 
Tried it with Netscape Navigator 4.72 for the first time. Got a different error, described above. 

February 16, 2001. Failed again today from a different computer but also with IE5. 

February 20, 2001. Failed with https://majestic2.vanguard.comnull/cgi-bin/SEMS/browser.cgi?browser_ok.jsp 

March 1, 2001. Failed with https://majestic2.vanguard.comnull/cgi-bin/SEMS/browser.cgi?browser_ok.jsp  and
    https://majestic3.vanguard.comnull/cgi-bin/SEMS/browser.cgi?browser_ok.jsp  

March 2, 2001. I went to the help section of the web site today and found this page:
   http://majestic.vanguard.com/SEMS/DA 
This is an excerpt from the above page: 
     You can send us an e-mail that only Vanguard personnel can view if your browser supports Secure Sockets 
     Layer (SSL) and U.S.-grade 128-bit encryption. To find out if your browser meets these standards, use
    our browser check.
What is interesting is that this is a different link for the web browser check. Two different URLs for the same function? No matter, the new one fails too and in the same manner.  

The help section however does have a facility to contact Vanguard electronically. 

From this web page I sent them a note telling them that both URLs for web browser checking did not work.  Someone from Vanguard responded later the next day (March 3) with a personal note saying that my web browser was okay. I knew that.  

March 7, 2001.   It still does not work.  Same error from both links 

March 15, 2001.  It still does not work. 

March 18, 2001. Went back to the web page where you can ask Vanguard about technical issues. This time rather than vaguely stating that the browser check function does not work, I gave them the exact URL that I used for the browser check and the bad URL it returned. 

March 20, 2001  A reply from Vanguard. 
    We are aware that the Browser Check feature is not currently functioning
    correctly. We are working to resolve this problem as quickly as possible.

March 21, 2001.  Vanguard was mentioned in a front page story in today's Wall Street Journal. The article was about technology spending and said that 45% of the operating costs at Vanguard are for information technology. Yet this problem persists for 1.5 months so far. Spending on technology will increase between 10 and 12% in 2001 according to the article. Yet this problem persists. In the past few years spending on technology at Vanguard increased 20% to 25%. Yet they created this problem.  The article also mentioned that Vanguard is now concentrating on adding new features to their network. It's obvious they are not concentrating on insuring the old features still work. Vanguard is working to add audio and video. All those numbers must be boring their customers.  

March 23, 2001. It still does not work. 

March 26, 2001. It still does not work. https://majestic3.vanguard.comnull/cgi-bin/SEMS/browser.cgi?browser_ok.jsp 

March 29, 2001. It still does not work. 

April 3, 20001. Still does not work. https://majestic4.vanguard.comnull/cgi-bin/SEMS/browser.cgi?browser_ok.jsp 

April 7, 2001. Still does not work.  https://majestic2.vanguard.comnull/cgi-bin/SEMS/browser.cgi?browser_ok.jsp 

April 11, 2001 Still does not work. https://majestic4.vanguard.comnull/cgi-bin/SEMS/browser.cgi?browser_ok.jsp 

April 17, 2001. Still does not work. https://majestic4.vanguard.comnull/cgi-bin/SEMS/browser.cgi?browser_ok.jsp 

April 22, 2001 Still does not work. https://majestic5.vanguard.comnull/cgi-bin/SEMS/browser.cgi?browser_ok.jsp 

April 30, 2001 Still does not work. https://majestic4.vanguard.comnull/cgi-bin/SEMS/browser.cgi?browser_ok.jsp 

May 3, 2001 Still does not work 

May 9, 2001. It still does not work, but the bad URL is different.  https://majestic5.vanguard.combrowser_ok.html/ 
Somebody at Vanguard changed something. Not the right thing. Just something. Code now, test later. 
Adding the obvious missing slash after the ".com" did not work. 

May 13, 2001. Still does not work  https://majestic5.vanguard.combrowser_ok.html/ 

May 18, 2001. Still does not work. https://majestic4.vanguard.combrowser_ok.html/ 

May 25, 2001. Still does not work https://majestic5.vanguard.combrowser_ok.html/ 

June 2, 2001. Still does not work.  This screen shot is from Netscape Navigator v4.77.

June 7, 2001. A new error generated at https://majestic4.vanguard.com/SEMS/browser_check 

I changed the computer name from majestic4 to majestic3 and majestic2 and got the same error. When I tried "majestic", I got an error about a bad certificate. 

June 13, 2001. Still does not work. Same internal server error number 500 as last time. 

June 15, 2001. I got an email today from Vanguard telling me about great new changes in their web site. 
"We've redesigned Vanguard.com with exciting new features that will make your online experience with us even more valuable"
I went to the URL provided in the email message and got the following note in a pop-up window: 

Written by a person without a clue. The only browser that "supports" MSIE 5.0 or higher is MSIE 5.0 or higher. No software exists that supports a web browser. When I go to www.vanguard.com and follow the links to the web browser check, it still fails with the internal server error documented above. You can't make this stuff up. They spent time and money on fancy new features for the web site, but for months and months they have not fixed the bug that tells a customer if their browser will work or not.

June 24, 2001. It still does not work. The same internal server error from : https://majestic3.vanguard.com/SEMS/browser_check 

July 2, 2001. It still does not work. The same internal server error from : https://majestic5.vanguard.com/SEMS/browser_check 

July 10, 2001. It still does not work. The same internal server error from https://majestic5.vanguard.com/SEMS/browser_check 

July 20, 2001. It still does not work. The same internal server error from https://majestic4.vanguard.com/SEMS/browser_check 

August 12, 2001. It works now. 

To test this yourself, this is the link on Vanguards site. 

Update: A Windows 98 user that I know was getting errors about weak encryption levels when trying to access a web site. I recalled that Vanguard tested your web browser and went to the technical help section of their re-designed web site. No more. Vanguard has no links that check your web browser for conformance to their rules and standards. Now they just give you the technical specs of what you need. No hand holding. No explanation for a non-techie. Someone in the know however, can still use the old link to test their browser. July 7, 2002.