![Firefox [Logo]](http://www.kartooner.com/archives/images/firefox.gif)
Most people I’ve talked to about the Firefox browser could care less about the “technical purity” and standards compliance. Rather, they are more concerned if the particular site they frequent is displayed correctly, and sometimes, especially if the site was built for IE only, it may not load at all with the Firefox browser.
Immediately they are turned off from the advantages of what Firefox has to offer instead of looking at the whole picture, wherein the developer of the particular site chose to code it with only IE in mind. One man has started a Firefox Gripes page, documenting the sites that currently do not render in Firefox. Most of the sites on his list use some form of proprietary code and it’s completely understandable why most of these sites do not render in Firefox, when the majority of them were not developed for universal browser use.
The recent fiasco with All Music Guide is a perfect example of this. For those of you out of the loop, All Music Guide is the equivolent of the Internet Movie Database, but in this case for music information. AMG recently re-designed their web site, which displayed without problems in IE, but for those using Firefox (or any other browser besides IE) a message was displayed essentially saying that AMG was built for IE and might incur display problems with other non-IE browsers.
This is ridiculous, only for the fact that you are literally slapping your readers in the face if they don’t conform to your browser demands. Rather than design a site that works universally with any browser, you’ve spent the time and money creating something that only displays correctly with a particular browser. It’s not fair to your readers, who will more than likely jump ship to another site that doesn’t caution them for their browser choice. In the case of All Music Guide, many readers suggested MP3.com, which uses a licensed version of the AMG database.
Let’s face it man — we developer nerds are the only ones who really give a hoot about web standards. That’s why I never bring that issue to clients — I just try my best to create a site that will pay for itself in the long run, being standards-compliant while it performs reasonably well across browsers, including, of course, the Son of Satan browser, otherwise known as IE.
Sometimes this all feels like some kind of purposed conspiracy by software giant Microsoft, forcing us (and everyone else) to accept and conform to what they think web standards should be — an issue of which 99% of computer users are totally unaware about. As long as they keep being the bully in town just because they can afford to be because of their dollars and brute-force market share, instead of playing fair and get along like everybody else… this will keep on and on forever.
I’ve been using AMG with Firefox/Windows and have had no real issues so far.
Does it show I haven’t had coffee today? Ergh.
Ah, the Monopoly that is Microsoft.
First of all, you have a problem in your link above to the Firefox Gripes page. I won’t bother retyping the URL, take a look and you’ll see exactly what happened. :-)
Sometimes, a website is IE-only when it really doesn’t need to be. Go to http://www.weightwatchers.com in Firefox and you’re told “sorry, get a different browser” but if you go to http://www.weightwatchers.com/index.aspx directly in Firefox it works fine. I can’t see anything, even in the subscription-only section, that doesn’t work.
I wrote to the folks at Weight Watchers and explained this to them, and their answer was essentially “we support the browsers that we support, get a different browser, thanks for calling…”
Thanks Judi for catching that. I accidently left off the http:// part of the URI, oops. That’s what I get without having a full-time editor.
As for Weight Watchers’ response, I’ve received the same response from IngramMicro. They acknowledged the existence of Firefox, but — at least for the time being — don’t see the advantages of supporting other browsers.
True beto, most people just don’t care, I have tried to convert several people to FF, but they don’t care what browser they use…they cite things such as “what about my bookmarks?? I say we’ll import them. Blah blah blah. I try to win them over with the tabs if nothing else.
Dude, there is NO WAY I could ever use a browser without tabs, those things are just sweet! I frequent sites that run web-mapping apps, and many of these won’t run on anything but IE, which sucks (although this is becoming less and less of a problem lately).
Personally, I don’t think anyone should ever be told what browser to use (we can suggest all we want, right?), whether it be IE or Mozilla, that choice is ultimately left up to the end user. Telling people your site is “Best viewed in IE” is saying that you are a coding wuss. That said, I also believe sites should be coded to function properly (not necessarily look exactly as wanted, i.e. CSS issues) in any browser, especially if you want to make money off of the site. If I were trying to buy something at a site while using FF, and say, the shopping cart were to crash (after they “advised” me to use IE), I would take my business elsewhere.
I don’t really have time for crap like that, do you?
I don’t think the solution lies on to forcing browser choices on anyone even if it’s for their own good — that would be much like some Best Buy dude nagging me into buying a Magnavox TV when I’ve been fine with my old Sony all along, and will rather buy another Sony again over time.
Those old enough to remember the Web Standards Project early steps might remember a banner ad along these lines (If TVs didn’t follow standards). The real problem here is MS refusing to play fair and along with everyone else; instead of tweaking up their browser to follow a common set of rules which would make all our lives easier, they just choose to play the bully guy and defy everyone else, by doing nothing — and since they already got 95% of the world’s PC market share, why should they bother over the other 5%?
Unless they don’t lose something like 20% or so, MS is not going to move its ass, and even then they’ll just concentrate on churning more agressive marketing to lure new clients, not on web standards — because of the “my way or the highway” mindset that has been characteristic of MS and others (i.e. some guy from Texas that happens to be a President) for so many years.
I’ve finally had my two obligatory cups of coffee, thank goodness. And yes, slow day at work.
This is in response to the first commenter. I’ve actually convinced many people, non-developers and developers alike, to use Firefox, not only to support web standards, but to have a better browsing experience. For web standards, I tell them the truth — it makes your website more accessible to more people, saves you money on bandwidth bill, makes it easy to update the site for future changes, and so on. It’s very easy to sell someone on web standards, whether they have their own webpage or not — as long as you use plain English to explain it to them.
This gripes page is concise and informative. While it doesn’t present any solutions, and these problems have been known for a while, someone is just voicing it louder. Of course we all know the culprit is Microsoft, so the only thing we can do is bend our knees, lower our head, and move forward, one step at a time.
I’ve gotten my roommate, who has used AOL for the past 6 years, daily, to switch to Firefox just recently. Imported her bookmarks, address book to Thunderbird, and uninstalled AOL. She has not looked back, and asked me why I didn’t do this sooner. She’s loving the tabbed browser, the pop up blocking, the ad blocking (Firefox Help FAQ has code you can put in your userContent file), and increased security. She has gone from getting new spyware/adware every week, to none in months.
My next convert? My grandma. :)
Kartooner, you can actually leave out the http: part out of an URL. Same with www. I’ve taken to typing URLs out as a href=”//kartooner.com”. Less typing, and even less bandwidth in the long run. :)
Matt: You know, Grandma should have received top billing over your roommate. ;)
Also, thanks for the tip. To be honest, I never knew you could do that! I’m always learning and for good reason, it broadens my skills.
I’m impressed…lots of heavy duty comments on your Foxfire article. Keep up the good work and ‘learning’!
While we are at it in browser talk, MS apparently unveiled an “IE Blog” as a PR channel between the IE development team and the rest of us. As expected, it didn’t take long to be littered with comments trash ranging from the “Eff j00” kind to the simplistic, useless “IE Bad Firefox good” stance. However, things seem to be now more under control.
If they are really listening, that can only be a good thing.
It’ll be interesting to see what unfolds. Will this be a bit more informative than the Google Blog? Or, will it just be another watered-down PR channel, in this case vague and indirect?
MS have indeed opened a blog at the url above. The layout is done in *gasp* tables.
Tables? Oh, the horror. *cue 1930s serial radio theme*