Hall of shame...

[blufive]

Corporate websites that can't be arsed with other browsers, pt 94: www.argos.co.uk

Mozilla:

Sorry, the Argos Internet site cannot currently be viewed using Netscape 6 or other browsers with the same rendering engine.

Opera:

Sorry, in order for you to use this site (and to enjoy a better all-round web experience) you will need to update your browser.

The Argos site runs off all browsers from Internet Explorer version 4.01 upwards, and Netscape version 4.07 upwards.

Updating your browser is a simple process and can be done quickly by going through the link below.

This latter is followed by IE and Netscape buttons. But, since the release of version 7, Netscape don't offer 4.x on the main download page. So anyone using N6-7 gets the same message as moz. Of course, as is traditional in this situation, if Opera is set to identify itself as MSIE, it renders the page just fine.

When will companies learn that all they achieve by this kind of moronic cop-out is to show that they can't be bothered doing the job properly, and send a "Fuck You" message to any customers who can't, won't or don't use MSIE. Oh, and Netscape 4.x, of course, just to show that they support alternative browsers.

Comments

[fridgemagnet.livejournal.com]

Said it before, but the message might as well be replaced by "We are a bunch of idiots who have employed know-nothing web-monkeys to build our site. You can be sure that, if they ever get round to updating the site so you can get in, it will be ugly and unusable. Why not go somewhere else to do your shopping?"

[fridgemagnet.livejournal.com]

oh, and the other message is, "Do you work in IT, know about browsers, not use IE, have lots of disposable income and do a lot of online shopping? Fuck off then! We don't want people like you! We're going for the ignorant AOLer demographic!"

Well, actually...

[replyhazy.livejournal.com]

...what this really says is that they market by the numbers, not by targeting customers. They saw some statistics that say Opera is used by 1% of all users, so first they told their IT department they would not support that, and not to test for it. Oh yes, and you get 10% of the testing time you wanted anyway, so you better hope that it actually works on the browsers we say we support.

Then when the IT department offered up a nice simple design, they said, oh no, we want to use technology X, because it is so cool. And if anybody in IT said, well, look, even fewer people will be able to use the site, like Netscape 6 people, they said, who cares?

You don't have to have ignorant people in IT. Ignorant people in management will do very nicely indeed. Actually, I think it's fairly sweet they even gave you a MESSAGE saying it wouldn't work. Most places are willing to just let it show up broken!

But I'm not bitter. Oh no. Oh no no no.

Side laugh: they've set things up so you can't view the source of the page. As if anyone would seriously want to steal their HTML....

Re: Well, actually...

[hawkida.livejournal.com]

Hey, *you* didn't work for BGC as well, did you?

[blufive.livejournal.com]

Actually, I think it's fairly sweet they even gave you a MESSAGE saying it wouldn't work. Most places are willing to just let it show up broken!

Personally, I think I prefer broken most of the time. Though it does depend how broken. "Graceful degradation" is the name of the game.

they've set things up so you can't view the source of the page

Oh, THAT's why they won't let Opera or Mozilla in (which can both view it with ease)

[eggwhite.livejournal.com]

What shows that they really don't care is that they've not actually changed the site in any way for a couple of years... It gets mentioned on the Opera forums fairly regularly as a nightmare site.

I suspect their management outsourced for it because they didn't have a clue, and got a bunch of cowboys who couldn't give a shit. Seems to be a fairly normal state of affairs these days...

[tinyjo.livejournal.com]

That really bugs me. Especially as if I get Mozilla to lie and say it's IE6 the site displays fine. Browser sniffing is bad, m'kay.

[blufive.livejournal.com]

You've been reading this, haven't you?

[blufive.livejournal.com]

Replyhazy: Having personally worked on at least one site where the directive came down from senior management (of a large multinational) Thou Shalt Not Support Netscape 6, I completely understand that it may not be the people actually doing the typing.

In this case, though, I'm with Eggwhite: it looks like they glanced at some browser stats three years ago, and have slavishly followed them ever since. When they started getting complaints from Netscape 6 users about two years ago, they stuck a server-side sniff in to tell them to bog off.

Of course, now, with alternative browsers popping up all over the place, they reap what they have sown: as FridgeMagnet says, they piss off all the technically-adept early adopters. Dolts.