very bad mood

[baratron]

I am in a Very Bad Mood because a website I use frequently has been changed so that it is no longer compatible with Opera. When I complained, I was told "we only support IE 5 and Netscape 6, so you'll have to use one of those".

Now:

• Opera is almost 100% compliant with W3C standards for HTML and javascript. So if the site makes it crash, it must use extremely non-valid HTML. I have, in fact, run the site through the W3C validator, and can't get less than 20 errors using any version of HTML.
  
• I have a huge bee in my bonnet about non-valid HTML. (When I have acquired enough arsedness points, I'm going to rewrite my livejournal styles so that they all validate.)
  
• While I could get Netscape 6, I don't really have space on the laptop's hard drive.
  
• I refuse to use IE, because it has memory leaks and hard disc leaks, to say nothing of the security issues. Before I got Opera, I set IE's disc cache to be 20MB. It completely ignored this instruction. 800MB later I was running out of hard disc space. So I tried to use the "clear disc cache" option to get rid of it, IE claimed the disc cache had been cleared, but the files were still there. Explorer would not let me delete the files manually, so I had to hack the registry to get rid of them. That was the last straw that made me download Opera.
  
• The Sims Resource is a site that you have to pay for access to. I have paid good money, and now I can't use it. The support people there say "we have only ever supported IE 5 and Netscape 6, so it's your problem". Well, until the most recent update, they might have said that, but I could still view the site without any trouble in Opera. Now, it crashes the browser.
  
• What I'm going to have to do is use Mozilla on the linux box, download all of the Sims stuff I want, then transfer it across the internal network to the laptop. I believe the phrase for this is "a complete fucking fiasco".

I am so angry I'm steaming! I know it's a stupid thing to get upset about, but lately all sorts of small things have been pissing me off - I'm probably premenstrual, or something. I'm absolutely mad, and I don't know how to argue my case that they bloody well should use valid HTML, when probably 90% of the sites on the internet don't. Grrrrrrrrrrrrr.

(I need an angry userpic - one of a wolfy with Big Teeth snarling. I'll have to look for one).

Comments

[lovingboth]

You're right. And they've no reasonable excuse.

It currently says 'Required browser(s): Internet Explorer 5 and above or Netscape 6 and above' when you click on 'join'. Did it always do that?

If you paid by credit card, I'd start demanding a refund from the card company.

In the meantime, suck the site dry of everything you want via someone else's PC.

[36.livejournal.com]

If it's any consolation, viewing that site in Windows Mozilla just caused my PC to go massively into swap and thrash wildly to the point where trying to click the mouse to close the window had the internal speaker bleeping in protest. Thankfully I'm using win2k that can actually recover from that stuff.

So yes, there's something deeply deeply broken with that page.

[meirion.livejournal.com]

in some senses i agree with you. otoh, i'm currently developing websites that take advantage of some of the edge-cases of css that only mozilla supports (and from which netscape and (i hope) opera degrade gracefully, but ie gets stuffed on).

in the specific case where you've paid for something, their response is sufficiently crap that i would suggest finding a partially-sighted friend who'd signed up for their service and throwing the DDA at them. at least my sites are perfectly navigable and viewable in lynx ! (their join-up form is, actually, even if it threatens necessity of ie 5 or netscape 6).

-m-

[jinian.livejournal.com]

I really hate that kind of thing, too. I wish there were more to do than give sites like that horrible publicity and promote alternative browsers.

[mjl]

actually Opera's support for script stuff isn't great, because it doesn't implement the standard DOM... but they're apparently redoing their engine completely for version 7, so that'll probably get better... but that's just me being picky and it doesn't take away from the rest of your point...

I can see no reason for them to have a site that only works on those specific browsers... supporting IE4 and NN4 is about the only good reason for doing non-standard stuff... their popup menus are a bit wonky on mozilla 1.2alpha, and the whole site goes slow... it's just crap... sounds like you've got a good case for getting a refund...

[lovingboth]

Oh, there's at least one browser that uses the Netscape 6.x page rendering engine without all the crap that makes up the rest of NN6.x

You could try one of those...

[adjectivemarcus.livejournal.com]

Looking forward to Unleashed? I've started working out how many days it is until the release.

I'm so sad!

[damerell.livejournal.com]

If they didn't say so when you first paid, get a refund from your credit card company. This will be an enormous amount of Pain for them.

[nmg.livejournal.com]

actually Opera's support for script stuff isn't great, because it doesn't implement the standard DOM

They also don't support the whole of HTML4.01/XHTML and have rather spotty coverage of CSS2. I tried Opera as an alternative to Mozilla for the first time a couple of weeks ago, and was rather unimpressed.

[baratron.livejournal.com]

I rather suspect they did say it, but I ignored it because the site worked (loads of sites say they only guarantee to work with some versions of IE and Netscape, but actually work perfectly well with other browsers). It's only been since they redid the site a couple of weeks ago that I can't get it to work at all, and this is why I'm annoyed.

It's a combination of things that are annoying me - and I'm sure the biggest one is that I'm running out of hard disc space on the laptop and it's very difficult to upgrade laptops. Otherwise I would just install whatever version of Netscape it thinks I need and use that for that one site. Having used linux-based browsers for so long, I'm used to having to switch browser for one site or another. It just bugs me that sites use browser-specific technology when the whole idea of the web is that it's supposed to be software-independent. I suspect that this is a very old bugbear for anyone who has bothered to comment here, though.

[baratron.livejournal.com]

I can understand that. However, as an alternative to IE, Opera rocks! Also, it has a couple of features which aren't in any other browser.

What browser you use is another one of those vi/emacs wars. You use the one which has features you like and key configs which are intuitive to you. Some pieces of software are "better" than others because they run faster on most machines or because they are more neatly-coded, but overall which one is better for you is a matter of choice. Speaking personally, I'd go for pine, Opera and pico every time. So when I see people struggling with IE, of course I'm going to recommend Opera. But I don't think everyone in the world should use it. That's Microsoft thinking ;)

[baratron.livejournal.com]

ah, hrm. I don't think it would be possible to play The Sims if you were only partially-sighted - it's a very visual game. But it's a good idea for other sites.

[nmg.livejournal.com]

However, as an alternative to IE, Opera rocks! Also, it has a couple of features which aren't in any other browser.

Which features? The main novel features that Opera has that I am aware of are the gestural interface and tabbed browsing, but Moz now has both of those.

[damerell.livejournal.com]

Er... quite. The thought has crossed my mind once or twice. :-)