Firefox Creating New Web Compatibility Nightmare?
Wednesday, June 13, 2007 by Zoomba | Discussion: WinCustomize News
In days not so long past, it was the dreaded "This page looks best when viewed in Internet Explorer/Netscape" message posted to the bottom of a website, the sign of the times when two competing web browsers diverged so widely from one another in how they rendered simple HTML tags. Today, some of those incompatibilities still exist, and many a web developer finds themselves writing case statements for each browser they want to support. However, a new issue is coming up; extensions and plugins
As Web 2.0 continues to gain momentum, and the web browser is treated more and more as an application platform for developers to expand upon, we're starting to see more and more sites out there that require special plugins be added to a browser to get the full functionality of a given site. So now instead of a user having to juggle a few browsers to view sites, they have to keep tabs on often dozens of plugins and extensions so their favorite sites work like they're supposed to
DownloadSquad takes a look at the problem with a few specific cases like StumbleUpon. Hit the link below to read the whole thing.
Reply #2 Wednesday, June 13, 2007 4:56 PM
An example is the proofreading company I worked for. Their OCR output proofing interface required FireFox. Why? Well, besides a few minor issues that probably could be worked around in IE, the biggest issue was that IE does not have an equivalent to the Image Zoom extension. Ubiquitous to firefox users, IE users have no easy way to rapidly scale and zoom in on images in their browser using only the mouse. When proofing OCR output, that ability is crucial to see smaller print in source images without having to leave the proofing interface.
The problem - and my hate - comes in when there is absolutely no REASON for a website to enforce a browser requirement. Banks (mostly) finally came to their senses on this. Firefox supports encryption that's just as good as IE. Yet you'll still see websites refuse to support anything but IE for something so simple as a forum.
Or, sites like right here at WinCustomize, where the word is that although Firefox is "supported", it doesn't work quite right, and the blame is on Firefox, although there are hundreds of community site software packages available that have absolutely no issues doing the exact same thing in Firefox.
A browser is a tool. Just like physical tools, sometimes one tool does the job better than another, and in those cases, the proper tool should be used. However, developer laziness and/or bias is the usual root of the "Best viewed with" or "Only viewable with" nightmare.
Reply #3 Wednesday, June 13, 2007 8:48 PM
Reply #4 Wednesday, June 13, 2007 8:51 PM
Firefox isn't at fault here... shortsighted website makers/owners are. But that's nothing new at all.
Tell that to andrew.
*runs*
Reply #5 Wednesday, June 13, 2007 11:21 PM
Reply #6 Thursday, June 14, 2007 2:23 AM
storm in a teacup.
Reply #7 Thursday, June 14, 2007 2:39 AM
*runs*
You can run, but you'll only die tired ...
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Reply #1 Wednesday, June 13, 2007 4:03 PM
as far as displaying WC website properly other
websites seem to work fine though , waaaa happened ?
opppsss now it's working again ??????