an open comment

[caveman_piet]

Here is part of an e-mail I sent off a
few minutes ago.

Any comments - anybody?


"Hi.

re. The Internet Home Page  -http://www.energade.co.za-

Seeing as you try and force me and others such as me to
use the microdoze internet Exploder and thus
even stopping Linux and Apple users from getting
to the site.

I will publish this fact as far and wide as is possible
on the Internet and by telling people about it.

I have allready prohibited my family members from  buying
any of the related products.

Regards"

etc. etc.
 How dare a commercial company try and pull this trick?
Are they nuts - or does William Henry Gates III
et al. own this as well.
Maybe the whole shebang is driven by Microsoft
products?

Ok Ok I know I'm ranting - but this after spending
20 (twenty) hours fixing the wife/kids machine
running winbloze 2k. (They need the rubbish for varcity and work) and this is where I'm sending from, to test.

[voidmain]

It's funny. It didn't want to work in Mozilla, not because Mozilla couldn't handle what they had to offer but because it wasn't IE. I loaded up Konqueror and got a blank page, that is until I told Konqueror to identify as IE 5.5 on Win2K from the pull down menu. Then the site worked just fine. What a bunch of M$ nazis.

[rtgwbmsr]

It works fine in Mozilla 1.1 over here...IDing itself as Netscape 6.2

[Master of Reality]

if you are using netscape it sends you to http://www.energade.co.za/nscape/nscape.htm which tells you that the site is optimized for IE and wont let you go anywhere else.

if you are using or identified as IE you go to: http://www.energade.co.za/ie.htm which worx absolutely fine in mozilla.

The reason konqueror shows a blank page is because they only have a redirect for IE and netscape no default redirect.

email for the website is [email protected]

[ October 18, 2002: Message edited by: The Master of Reality / Bob ]

[beltorak0]

it was after all generated with frontpage.  What do you expect?

My own email (sent today to my insurance company's web site) was a little more cival;
 

quote:
I was a little annoyed when visiting your site in Mozilla on Linux and discovered that your site does only rudimentary browser checking and would not let me pay my bill on line.  I am currently using Konqueror in Linux (with the browser identification set to Netscape Navigator 4.76 on Windows 95) and it displays fine.  I Am sure it would also display fine in Mozilla 1.0 since it uses much of the same codebase that Netscape 6 uses.  I (as well as a few others in a growing minority) would appreciate a more thorough browser checking engine, or at the very least the option of continuing to use the site despite not having the correct browser type.

Thank you for your concern;

<name>

ps: the text entry box for feedback is a little small, it almost gives the impression that customer feedback for the site is discouraged.

-t.

[Chooco]

hey how can i check client browsers? i want to put a thing on my website that will give a TON of errors if it detects an IE connection such as "your browser does not support tables", "your browser does not support forms", "your browser does not support frames" and "your browser does not support HTML"

[Refalm]

Code: [Select]

Have fun  

[ October 19, 2002: Message edited by: Refalm ]

[lazygamer]

What about the people running browsers set to identify as IE? Unless you are a cracker and find some vunerabilities in Windows that allows your site to find out the TRUE broswer someone is using, you could end up scaring away some non-IE users.

[Master of Reality]

that was one fucked up sentence.

reworded:
if one could find out what real browser someone was running, instead of using the UA, one could scare away non-IE users'

your right... its a good thing you cant really do that. I like to just exploit the flaws in IE to detect it because you can change IEs UA in the registry easily.

[Pissed_Macman]

caveman, maybe you should refrain from using terms like "Winblows" and "internet deplorer" when complaining to companies or websites. I know you were angry, but your email reads like it was written by a ten-year-old. The person who received it obviously laughed or was frightened. Either way, you won't be taken seriously writing like that.

[caveman_piet]

Yea right Macman -

ever notice how -when one is really pissed off
one actually tend to think and act like that.

I know - that is the worst time to either
fight or in this case write an e-mail.

But except it in the spirit (sic) it was
written in.

Maybe it'll have some effect -
If only I can get a few more SAN's to e-mail them as well.

[caveman_piet]

Hi.

Further to the e-mail I sent.

Got a call from a "Microsoft certified" development house of "web pages and solutions".

Lady informed me that "according to our research and statistics MOST people ONLY use IE".
You can Imagine my response to that.

Further she informs me that "very few people use macs and even less uses Linux" which prompted and
even nastier retort from me.

She also said that "we cannot possibly cater for all available browsers" to which I commented that
if they used the internasional standards it would not have been a problem but as they developed for the ONLY non-standard browser the problem will occur.
And people with a wee bit of brains that must use windows - tend NOT to use IE or outlook as these are virus collectors. So that they even lock out
windows users with some brains - using Mozilla etc.

etc. etc. in this general trend.

Eventually she asked "if we make it available for Netscape and Mozilla will you be satisfied" and I promptly said no! what about konqueror,Lynx etc?. Just use the agreed upon universal standards and the problem disappear by itself.

See rang off after a few moments of strange breathing (come to think about it - see was getting cross) .

So am awaiting any further response from them as promissed.

Oh - and I kept very cool during the conversation.
not even allowing one of my frequent anti M$
statements to slip out!

[voidmain]

Some more examples of this Nazi behavior:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/27698.html

with comments:

http://newsvac.newsforge.com/newsvac/02/10/21/2040258.shtml?tid=23

See? Send those emails when you run across such sites. And if you get shit back, report it to the news sites.