We run a business.

We need to account for income and expenses.

We need to be able to access that data from anywhere.

Quickbooks Online Edition. Problem solved.

Whoa, there big guy - not quite. I see you run linux. We know that firefox is a cross platform browser, and the web is supposed to support open standards, but since your browser reports you as a linux user, you can't get in.

!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?

Intuit has been remarkably slow about cross platform support (only recently supporting Mac with their standalone Quickbooks software, as well as their online version), but this seems a slap in the face. When you access any website, your browser sends information to that website in what's known as a header - it tells the website information such as browser name, version, and (among other things) your operating system. While this can be used in a good way (automatically sending you to the correct download link for your OS, for example) Intuit has actually blocked. Here's what you're presented with:

Awesome.

Fortunately, there's an easy fix: Tell firefox to lie. Yup.

Get the "User Agent Switcher" add-on for firefox (available here) and set up a new user agent.

(My screen show shows "Edit User Agent", just hit "New" and make sure it looks like this when you're done.)

Hit OK, then go to "Tools->Default User Agent->Firefox 3 (Windows XP)"

Hit refresh, and you're in!

So, a rather simple workaround for a limitation that was set by a website (rather than an actual limitation of linux).

Now for my CYA: This works for me. If it doesn't work for you, I take no responsibility. If you lose all your data, mess something up, catch super-herpes, or just feel bad because you forced your innocent web browser to lie, it's on your head. I'm not telling you to do it, just telling you I've done it and it seems to work just fine. I am not your parent (except you Ian and Christian! LOL) so take responsibility for your own stuff, k?

I emailed Intuit, and mentioned the increasing number of linux users with netbooks, ex-windows users, etc. Here was their response:

Hi Shannon,

Thank you for taking the time to provide us with your feedback. The QuickBooks Online team values your thoughts, comments, and requests.

I want to say a second thank you for such a well though out and stated email as well.

It is because of requests such as this that online eventually started to allow access to users with firefox on windows and In the Macintosh world Safari and Firefox.

There is currently an open enhancement ticket for the ability to expand to Linux. I have added your feedback to that request but can not say when (or even if) it will be added.

Hopefully though, your comments (and others like yours) will be heard and we will move to expand our functionality.

At this time I am going to close this feedback case but once again, thank you for your valuable suggestions!

Jonathan

It makes one thing clear: if you want support (for any software, not just intuit), make sure the company knows it. It appears that Intuit knows people want to use their software on linux, are willing to PAY for it (obviously), and are taking it into consideration. If there is a market, companies will produce product!

Hope you find this helpful. Keep moving forward linux users!

Oh, and if you're in the Northeast Ohio area, there's a LoCo meeting tonight at 6PM at Panera in Montrose, OH. Come hang with us, meet fellow Ubuntu users, or if you're just interested in seeing what the fuss is all about, swing by anyway. We'll throw a liveCD in so you can try it out without touching your existing system. Hope to see you there!

Shan