I wrote:How are they doing this detection [of Acroread]?Celejar writes:I don't know.
I suspect they rely on internet explorer being the browser, install some sort of activex control and retrieve whatever information they can about the users' computer. (This can potentially include sensitive information)
If it is not a requirement for you to deal with this particular financial institution, I recommend switching to someone else having better standards support (and inform the original institution about it and your reasons for the change).
Otherwise, try the version of adobe reader that is available for linux, though I guess they won't be able to detect that it is installed if you access their site using linux. If this check for 'reader' is a one time process, you can probably try connecting to their site from a trusted windows machine with adobe reader installed, get through with the verification step and then continue your transactions from your normal machine.
HTH, rajkiran