Happy Thanksgiving to Everyone Here in the States!
The Tech Tip
When you are trying to navigate government websites and they are giving you strange issues (or, more realistically, are not working at all), try using Microsoft Edge's Internet Explorer feature.
To enable this, click the three dots in the upper right corner, select "More tools," and then choose "Reload in Internet Explorer mode." The site should start working immediately.
I have also seen this issue on bank portals, such as those for Bank of America or JP Morgan Chase. NOTE: When I refer to bank portals, I am referring to the enterprise/business portals that corporations use to make banking transactions, not the consumer-facing websites.
Background
I didn't include this post in my "weirdest fixes" series because I never actually searched for this solution online. I learned this from a former coworker who pointed out that government websites—due to their nature—often lag behind and use older technology. Consequently, it's easier to access them with the browser that the older technology was originally designed around: Internet Explorer.
While I don't claim to know for a fact that these government sites use infrastructure so old that it was designed around IE, the evidence strongly suggests it, as this fix has worked like a charm on multiple occasions for me. Moreover, when I say government websites, I specifically mean their dedicated portals, such as the US Customs and Border Protection's ACE portal, which is used by logistics departments handling offshore manufacturing.
I also mentioned banking institutions. Here is the reason: I came across a user one day who was experiencing issues where a banking portal would not work properly, and enabling IE mode fixed the problem immediately. My thought at the time was that banks, too, might be using older infrastructure on the enterprise/business side. Dealing with large-scale business operations can make staying fully up-to-date challenging, leading them to stay on older systems. Given that this fix worked instantly after standard troubleshooting (e.g., clearing cache/cookies and using a different browser), I'd say this is at least a plausible evaluation.
Conclusion
I hope this helps anyone out there who is either experiencing these issues or assisting end-users who are!
Post Script note about AI Usage in this post
I made use of Google's Gemini AI to proofread and work through the clarity of this blog post; however, the contents contained therein are all my original thoughts.