U.S. bank Chase (NYSE: JPM) has decided to drop support for Chrome and Opera Web browsers after July 1, though the bank will continue supporting Internet Explorer (6.0 and higher), Firefox (2.0 and higher) and Safari (3.0 and higher). Users will see a "Page Not Found" error if they are using an unsupported browser after the date, says the bank.

This development was first posted on popular tech blog Slashdot and subsequently reported on The Register. Personally, I feel that the message being conveyed is confusing at best, since the reason given for dumping Chrome and Opera was cited as popularity and security. According to its FAQ page, "There are dozens of browsers in use today, but not all offer the minimum levels of security that we require."

However, one gets the feeling that the bank is merely attempting to reduce the cost of having to validate its site across multiple browsers; since the nine-year-old Internet Explorer 6 is anything but secure. If anything, encouraging the use of IE6 is detrimental and actively discouraged even by Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT).

With financial constraints in mind, the logical approach would have been to adhere to web standards in order to support the widest range of browser. Doing this will allow even "unsupported" browsers to remain usable in most cases, and sounds like a better strategy than alienating users by outright blocking "unsupported browsers." What is your opinion on sites that actively block certain web browsers?

For more on this story:
- check out this article at The Register
- check out this blog at Slashdot 

Related Articles:
Google releases new beta of Chrome Frame for IE
Mozilla set for November release for Firefox 4
Google Chrome 5 beta: Twice as fast as IE9 PP on SunSpider
Internet Explorer's market share in EU takes a tumble