[Solved] Vanguard’s Bond Site, from an iPad

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Bagels
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[Solved] Vanguard’s Bond Site, from an iPad

Post by Bagels »

For those of you who buy individual treasuries at Vanguard using an iPad or iPad mini, with which browser have you had the best success? I’m talking about the section you get to when you click “Trade Bonds and CDs”; this has nothing to to with bond funds.

As noted in this 2023 thread, Problem Buying Treasuries on Vanguard Website, “The bond part of Vanguard's site is a third-party iframe.” (tradewebretail.com).

As a result of this iframe not loading, I used to have to do bond trading on the seldom-used desktop. Not the end of the world, but since I conduct 99% of my interactions with Vanguard on the sofa with an ipad, I’m constantly looking for a way to make it 100%.

A year or two ago, it suddenly became possible to buy treasuries on the ipad, in Safari, as long as all pop-up blockers were disabled. (For those of you who use Proton Drive’s new Proton Docs, same deal. Allow pop-ups).

What I can’t do is sell those treasuries. The iframe doesn’t load. Has anyone found a browser that works for selling?

Solved by Cyber Bob, below
Last edited by Bagels on Thu Feb 06, 2025 8:49 pm, edited 1 time in total.
How can you tell if someone’s a vegan | Ans: Oh, they’ll tell you | How do you know if a boglehead doesn’t care about calculating dividend yield? | Ans: Oh, they’ll tell you, even if 10 other people have
exodusNH
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Re: Vanguard’s Bond Site, from an iPad

Post by exodusNH »

Bagels wrote: Mon Feb 03, 2025 8:49 am For those of you who buy individual treasuries at Vanguard using an iPad or iPad mini, with which browser have you had the best success? I’m talking about the section you get to when you click “Trade Bonds and CDs”; this has nothing to to with bond funds.

As noted in this 2023 thread, Problem Buying Treasuries on Vanguard Website, “The bond part of Vanguard's site is a third-party iframe.” (tradewebretail.com).

As a result of this iframe not loading, I used to have to do bond trading on the seldom-used desktop. Not the end of the world, but since I conduct 99% of my interactions with Vanguard on the sofa with an ipad, I’m constantly looking for a way to make it 100%.

A year or two ago, it suddenly became possible to buy treasuries on the ipad, in Safari, as long as all pop-up blockers were disabled. (For those of you who use Proton Drive’s new Proton Docs, same deal. Allow pop-ups).

What I can’t do is sell those treasuries. The iframe doesn’t load. Has anyone found a browser that works for selling?
On iOS, due to Apple's policies in the US, all web browsers use the Safari engine. E.g., Chrome is just a re-skinning of Safari. It can't be fundamentally changed.
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Bagels
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Re: Vanguard’s Bond Site, from an iPad

Post by Bagels »

Ah, I did not know that!
Thank you.
How can you tell if someone’s a vegan | Ans: Oh, they’ll tell you | How do you know if a boglehead doesn’t care about calculating dividend yield? | Ans: Oh, they’ll tell you, even if 10 other people have
jebmke
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Re: Vanguard’s Bond Site, from an iPad

Post by jebmke »

exodusNH wrote: Mon Feb 03, 2025 8:52 am
Bagels wrote: Mon Feb 03, 2025 8:49 am For those of you who buy individual treasuries at Vanguard using an iPad or iPad mini, with which browser have you had the best success? I’m talking about the section you get to when you click “Trade Bonds and CDs”; this has nothing to to with bond funds.

As noted in this 2023 thread, Problem Buying Treasuries on Vanguard Website, “The bond part of Vanguard's site is a third-party iframe.” (tradewebretail.com).

As a result of this iframe not loading, I used to have to do bond trading on the seldom-used desktop. Not the end of the world, but since I conduct 99% of my interactions with Vanguard on the sofa with an ipad, I’m constantly looking for a way to make it 100%.

A year or two ago, it suddenly became possible to buy treasuries on the ipad, in Safari, as long as all pop-up blockers were disabled. (For those of you who use Proton Drive’s new Proton Docs, same deal. Allow pop-ups).

What I can’t do is sell those treasuries. The iframe doesn’t load. Has anyone found a browser that works for selling?
On iOS, due to Apple's policies in the US, all web browsers use the Safari engine. E.g., Chrome is just a re-skinning of Safari. It can't be fundamentally changed.
I didn't know that either but I have found that a noticeable number of sites don't seem to work well on my iPad. I am likely to drop MS this year and either go with a Mac mini or nothing. I assume the policy is the same on the Mac. I do have an old laptop with a Linux distro on it and I know that always works.
Don't trust me, look it up. https://www.irs.gov/forms-instructions-and-publications
exodusNH
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Re: Vanguard’s Bond Site, from an iPad

Post by exodusNH »

jebmke wrote: Mon Feb 03, 2025 8:59 am
exodusNH wrote: Mon Feb 03, 2025 8:52 am

On iOS, due to Apple's policies in the US, all web browsers use the Safari engine. E.g., Chrome is just a re-skinning of Safari. It can't be fundamentally changed.
I didn't know that either but I have found that a noticeable number of sites don't seem to work well on my iPad. I am likely to drop MS this year and either go with a Mac mini or nothing. I assume the policy is the same on the Mac. I do have an old laptop with a Linux distro on it and I know that always works.
As of right now, the full operating system on a Mac (macOS) doesn't have the same limitations.

Apple's restrictions on phones and tables have more to do with controlling their revenue streams than any sort of user benefit.

While they claimed that Flash was a battery hog, they mostly wanted to kill it because it had a Turing-complete scripting language that could be used to bypass Apple's draconian store rules, mostly around making sure people don't write their own payment systems.
pascalwager
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Re: Vanguard’s Bond Site, from an iPad

Post by pascalwager »

exodusNH wrote: Mon Feb 03, 2025 8:52 am
Bagels wrote: Mon Feb 03, 2025 8:49 am For those of you who buy individual treasuries at Vanguard using an iPad or iPad mini, with which browser have you had the best success? I’m talking about the section you get to when you click “Trade Bonds and CDs”; this has nothing to to with bond funds.

As noted in this 2023 thread, Problem Buying Treasuries on Vanguard Website, “The bond part of Vanguard's site is a third-party iframe.” (tradewebretail.com).

As a result of this iframe not loading, I used to have to do bond trading on the seldom-used desktop. Not the end of the world, but since I conduct 99% of my interactions with Vanguard on the sofa with an ipad, I’m constantly looking for a way to make it 100%.

A year or two ago, it suddenly became possible to buy treasuries on the ipad, in Safari, as long as all pop-up blockers were disabled. (For those of you who use Proton Drive’s new Proton Docs, same deal. Allow pop-ups).

What I can’t do is sell those treasuries. The iframe doesn’t load. Has anyone found a browser that works for selling?
On iOS, due to Apple's policies in the US, all web browsers use the Safari engine. E.g., Chrome is just a re-skinning of Safari. It can't be fundamentally changed.
I run Safari, Brave and DuckDuckGo browsers on my iPad. Are you saying that there is no difference?

When you run Safari, Google is the default search engine, but you can also run the Brave and DuckDuckGo search engines while using the Safari browser.
pascalwager
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Re: Vanguard’s Bond Site, from an iPad

Post by pascalwager »

Bagels wrote: Mon Feb 03, 2025 8:49 am For those of you who buy individual treasuries at Vanguard using an iPad or iPad mini, with which browser have you had the best success? I’m talking about the section you get to when you click “Trade Bonds and CDs”; this has nothing to to with bond funds.

As noted in this 2023 thread, Problem Buying Treasuries on Vanguard Website, “The bond part of Vanguard's site is a third-party iframe.” (tradewebretail.com).

As a result of this iframe not loading, I used to have to do bond trading on the seldom-used desktop. Not the end of the world, but since I conduct 99% of my interactions with Vanguard on the sofa with an ipad, I’m constantly looking for a way to make it 100%.

A year or two ago, it suddenly became possible to buy treasuries on the ipad, in Safari, as long as all pop-up blockers were disabled. (For those of you who use Proton Drive’s new Proton Docs, same deal. Allow pop-ups).

What I can’t do is sell those treasuries. The iframe doesn’t load. Has anyone found a browser that works for selling?
I'm surprised that anyone would want to use an iPad for any serious work, but I guess you've developed the needed skills. I'm impressed.
jebmke
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Re: Vanguard’s Bond Site, from an iPad

Post by jebmke »

pascalwager wrote: Tue Feb 04, 2025 1:44 pm
Bagels wrote: Mon Feb 03, 2025 8:49 am For those of you who buy individual treasuries at Vanguard using an iPad or iPad mini, with which browser have you had the best success? I’m talking about the section you get to when you click “Trade Bonds and CDs”; this has nothing to to with bond funds.

As noted in this 2023 thread, Problem Buying Treasuries on Vanguard Website, “The bond part of Vanguard's site is a third-party iframe.” (tradewebretail.com).

As a result of this iframe not loading, I used to have to do bond trading on the seldom-used desktop. Not the end of the world, but since I conduct 99% of my interactions with Vanguard on the sofa with an ipad, I’m constantly looking for a way to make it 100%.

A year or two ago, it suddenly became possible to buy treasuries on the ipad, in Safari, as long as all pop-up blockers were disabled. (For those of you who use Proton Drive’s new Proton Docs, same deal. Allow pop-ups).

What I can’t do is sell those treasuries. The iframe doesn’t load. Has anyone found a browser that works for selling?
I'm surprised that anyone would want to use an iPad for any serious work, but I guess you've developed the needed skills. I'm impressed.
I had thought about trying to only use the iPad when I retire my Win10 system this year but I'm finding the iPad limited and not comfortable doing anything financial other than lock/unlock credit cards or looking at statements. I have an old Lenovo Yoga running Linux that could work -- I might try going it alone with the iPad and use the Yoga for financials. Last resort my wife has a fairly new Win11 Yoga.

Some non-VG web sites gag entirely although it may be the fault of the site.
Don't trust me, look it up. https://www.irs.gov/forms-instructions-and-publications
exodusNH
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Re: Vanguard’s Bond Site, from an iPad

Post by exodusNH »

pascalwager wrote: Tue Feb 04, 2025 1:36 pm
exodusNH wrote: Mon Feb 03, 2025 8:52 am

On iOS, due to Apple's policies in the US, all web browsers use the Safari engine. E.g., Chrome is just a re-skinning of Safari. It can't be fundamentally changed.
I run Safari, Brave and DuckDuckGo browsers on my iPad. Are you saying that there is no difference?

When you run Safari, Google is the default search engine, but you can also run the Brave and DuckDuckGo search engines while using the Safari browser.
The "rendering engine" is the same. For practical purposes, they are identical. Chrome can have a slightly different UI and support features such as account synchronization, but the important parts are all provided by Safari.
jebmke
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Re: Vanguard’s Bond Site, from an iPad

Post by jebmke »

exodusNH wrote: Tue Feb 04, 2025 2:04 pm
pascalwager wrote: Tue Feb 04, 2025 1:36 pm

I run Safari, Brave and DuckDuckGo browsers on my iPad. Are you saying that there is no difference?

When you run Safari, Google is the default search engine, but you can also run the Brave and DuckDuckGo search engines while using the Safari browser.
The "rendering engine" is the same. For practical purposes, they are identical. Chrome can have a slightly different UI and support features such as account synchronization, but the important parts are all provided by Safari.
I've noticed that Brave (and probably Chrome) allow deleting selective history (e.g. only the cache) while Safari it is all or none.
Don't trust me, look it up. https://www.irs.gov/forms-instructions-and-publications
exodusNH
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Re: Vanguard’s Bond Site, from an iPad

Post by exodusNH »

jebmke wrote: Tue Feb 04, 2025 2:46 pm
exodusNH wrote: Tue Feb 04, 2025 2:04 pm

The "rendering engine" is the same. For practical purposes, they are identical. Chrome can have a slightly different UI and support features such as account synchronization, but the important parts are all provided by Safari.
I've noticed that Brave (and probably Chrome) allow deleting selective history (e.g. only the cache) while Safari it is all or none.
But that's not the important part of the browser. It's the rendering engine, which includes JavaScript. Those are identical.
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Re: Vanguard’s Bond Site, from an iPad

Post by jebmke »

exodusNH wrote: Tue Feb 04, 2025 3:08 pm
jebmke wrote: Tue Feb 04, 2025 2:46 pm
I've noticed that Brave (and probably Chrome) allow deleting selective history (e.g. only the cache) while Safari it is all or none.
But that's not the important part of the browser. It's the rendering engine, which includes JavaScript. Those are identical.
yes; I know. That's why some sites seem to gag on the iPad no matter what. This site seems to work fine. The IRS site seems to work fine. A couple other specialty sites like eBird have moved to apps so they seem to work fine as well. My local library, not so much. My use of the internet drops every year so it becomes less and less an issue.
Don't trust me, look it up. https://www.irs.gov/forms-instructions-and-publications
Topic Author
Bagels
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Re: Vanguard’s Bond Site, from an iPad

Post by Bagels »

exodusNH wrote: Mon Feb 03, 2025 9:37 am While {Apple} claimed that Flash was a battery hog, they mostly wanted to kill it because it had a Turing-complete scripting language that could be used to bypass Apple's draconian store rules, mostly around making sure people don't write their own payment systems.
The things one learns on this forum!

I love the Brave browser, including Brave for desktop Mac. It can do interesting things like create QR codes from the address bar.
Sometims when I log into my Verizon account and try to stream a TV channel on the computer, it just stops working in Safari. I try the same thing in Brave and it works. If you have enough RAM to keep all these browsers open, sometimes it’s worth it.
How can you tell if someone’s a vegan | Ans: Oh, they’ll tell you | How do you know if a boglehead doesn’t care about calculating dividend yield? | Ans: Oh, they’ll tell you, even if 10 other people have
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Bagels
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Re: Vanguard’s Bond Site, from an iPad

Post by Bagels »

pascalwager wrote: Tue Feb 04, 2025 1:44 pm I'm surprised that anyone would want to use an iPad for any serious work, but I guess you've developed the needed skills. I'm impressed.
I know people who do everything on their phone, and I don’t get it. It looks so constrained. Meanwhile, my ipad mini is just a few inches bigger.

Well, I’m not designing nuclear reactors :happy Mostly doing a lot of typing.
An ipad without a keyboard is my worst enemy. With an external/physical keyboard, it’s the greatest.
How can you tell if someone’s a vegan | Ans: Oh, they’ll tell you | How do you know if a boglehead doesn’t care about calculating dividend yield? | Ans: Oh, they’ll tell you, even if 10 other people have
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Re: Vanguard’s Bond Site, from an iPad

Post by CyberBob »

Settings --> Apps --> Safari --> Prevent Cross-Site Tracking (under the Privacy & Security section)

Turn it off and it will allow the third-party iframe to load.
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Re: Vanguard’s Bond Site, from an iPad

Post by Padlin »

I use the iPad for most tasks, including financials. The only thing I dig out the windows laptop for is spreadsheets, although if the laptop was quicker to boot I’d use it for more in-depth typing task too. I have been considering picking up a newer laptop just for financials before this thread came up. Just so I could have a dedicated finance machine that I’d shutdown when done.

FWIW, I’ve had no issues using TD or Vanguard from the iPad, but I haven’t tried selling.
Regards | Bob
pascalwager
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Re: Vanguard’s Bond Site, from an iPad

Post by pascalwager »

I use my iPad a lot--actually more than my two desktops. I've even installed the Google Sheets app on the iPad to access my portfolio spreadsheets, but I only use it passively except to occasionally update a bond fund duration or some other minor change. It's synched to a desktop where I actually construct and maintain the portfolio spreadsheets. This desktop has a Chrome browser so I can download Google Sheets and Google Maps. (Otherwise I would choose to completely avoid Google for privacy reasons.)

My financial accounts are on another desktop (Brave browser). I have three investment sub-accounts that don't have ticker symbols, and I may start entering them into my iPad instead of bothering to start up my Chrome desktop.

I also use my iPad for reading most of my (Proton) email, but I almost always use my Brave PC for writing anything.

Windows 10 is going to lose support in October, so I may then use Chrome as a secondary browser on my remaining Windows 11 PC if I become convinced that the Brave system can be kept isolated from any Google surveillance/data collection.
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Bagels
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Re: Vanguard’s Bond Site, from an iPad

Post by Bagels »

CyberBob wrote: Tue Feb 04, 2025 5:11 pm Settings --> Apps --> Safari --> Prevent Cross-Site Tracking (under the Privacy & Security section)

Turn it off and it will allow the third-party iframe to load.
It works! Even in the sell section.
Thank you so much, Bob!
How can you tell if someone’s a vegan | Ans: Oh, they’ll tell you | How do you know if a boglehead doesn’t care about calculating dividend yield? | Ans: Oh, they’ll tell you, even if 10 other people have
pascalwager
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Re: Vanguard’s Bond Site, from an iPad

Post by pascalwager »

exodusNH wrote: Tue Feb 04, 2025 2:04 pm
pascalwager wrote: Tue Feb 04, 2025 1:36 pm

I run Safari, Brave and DuckDuckGo browsers on my iPad. Are you saying that there is no difference?

When you run Safari, Google is the default search engine, but you can also run the Brave and DuckDuckGo search engines while using the Safari browser.
The "rendering engine" is the same. For practical purposes, they are identical. Chrome can have a slightly different UI and support features such as account synchronization, but the important parts are all provided by Safari.
Yes, I looked it up. Safari is built on an open-source browser engine called "WebKit". The other IOS browsers, and even Kindle Reader, also use WebKit.
exodusNH
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Re: [Solved] Vanguard’s Bond Site, from an iPad

Post by exodusNH »

Bagels wrote: Mon Feb 03, 2025 8:49 am For those of you who buy individual treasuries at Vanguard using an iPad or iPad mini, with which browser have you had the best success? I’m talking about the section you get to when you click “Trade Bonds and CDs”; this has nothing to to with bond funds.

As noted in this 2023 thread, Problem Buying Treasuries on Vanguard Website, “The bond part of Vanguard's site is a third-party iframe.” (tradewebretail.com).

As a result of this iframe not loading, I used to have to do bond trading on the seldom-used desktop. Not the end of the world, but since I conduct 99% of my interactions with Vanguard on the sofa with an ipad, I’m constantly looking for a way to make it 100%.

A year or two ago, it suddenly became possible to buy treasuries on the ipad, in Safari, as long as all pop-up blockers were disabled. (For those of you who use Proton Drive’s new Proton Docs, same deal. Allow pop-ups).

What I can’t do is sell those treasuries. The iframe doesn’t load. Has anyone found a browser that works for selling?

Solved by Cyber Bob, below
While that will fix it, it does reduce your privacy.
Topic Author
Bagels
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Re: [Solved] Vanguard’s Bond Site, from an iPad

Post by Bagels »

hmm 😬
How can you tell if someone’s a vegan | Ans: Oh, they’ll tell you | How do you know if a boglehead doesn’t care about calculating dividend yield? | Ans: Oh, they’ll tell you, even if 10 other people have
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