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

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)