Topic: Websites alienate Firefox users

[Grim]

Websites alienate Firefox users

One in 10 UK websites fail to work properly on the open source Firefox web browser, a study shows.

Some 100 leading consumer sites were assessed by web-testing firm SciVisum.

Websites that proved difficult for Firefox users to navigate included the government website Jobcentreplus.gov.uk and the cinema site Odeon.co.uk.

Firefox is an open source alternative to Microsoft's Internet Explorer and has proved popular since its launch in November last year.

While most people still use Microsoft's browser, Firefox is slowly making inroads.

Its share of the browser market grew to 8% in May, up from 5.59% at the beginning of the year, according to US-based analysts NetApplications.

Microsoft IE's share of the market dropped to 87.23% in May, compared to 90.31% in January.

Question of code

Of the websites that SciVisum tested, 3% were found to be turning away non Internet Explorer (IE) users and 7% of the sites included non-standard code recognised only by Microsoft's browser.

"Surprisingly, after all these years, users of standard-compliant browsers are still faced with sites that do not support their browser or with a link suggesting they download Internet Explorer," said Deri Jones, chief executive of SciVisum.

This is largely because web developers are used to testing their sites just using IE rather than so-called standards-compliant browsers, which only use code ratified by the World Wide Web consortium.

"There is a certain business logic to this as IE is the most widely used browser," said Mr Jones.

Microsoft is working on a new version of IE, largely in response to the success of Firefox.

Disabled access

"Companies who value their brand need to address browser issues immediately," said Mr Jones.

Web developers who create code around the web standards recommended by the World Wide Web stand to gain more than just friends among the alternative browser community.

It will also make it easier for disabled people to use, said Mr Jones.

"Over time developers have begun to misuse the original standards created for the web to create websites that look great to you and I, but are confusing to a disabled person using a screen reader which needs to make sense of the content," he said.

Simplifying things by separating content from presentation will have a third benefit in that it will make it easier for sites to be picked up by search engines, he added.

Some improvements

The Odeon website, which is listed by SciVisum as one of the culprits, has already come in for criticism about how accessible the site is for disabled users.

While its opening page seemed to work fine using Firefox, testers were faced with a blank page when they tried to enter the site.

An Odeon spokesperson said: "Firefox users can enter the site and get all the information about cinema listings and screening times, just without the bells and whistles of the fancier site.

"Instead of using the Enter button, they should use the text-only version."

On the Jobcentreplus site, testers were unable to use the search facility, while insurance.co.uk gave the impression that it was broken despite the fact that it did actually work with the Firefox browser.

The British American Tobacco website hid most of its pages from Firefox users as the menu system did not show choices if visitors are not using IE.

Some sites had made improvements. Electrical retailer Powerhouse initially excluded Firefox users when it launched its new website design in May, but it has since fixed the problem.

And English Heritage no longer sends Firefox browser users to a non-graphical version of the site.

Firefox has been created by the Mozilla Foundation which was started by former browser maker Netscape back in 1998.

The group is an open source organisation which means that the creators of the browser are happy for others to play around with the core code for the program.

Firefox is proving popular because, at the moment, it has far fewer security holes than Internet Explorer and has some innovations lacking in Microsoft's program.

Source:- http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4115806.stm

 

[toasty0]

Maybe the title should read, "Firefox alienates web designers..."



<snicker>

[ELITE-Kaos]

"Firefox is proving popular because, at the moment, it has far fewer security holes than Internet Explorer and has some innovations lacking in Microsoft's program. "

Not accoding to the NCC (National Computing Centre).  Firefox is known to be full of wholes with IE having had many years of work done to fix the errors and block the exploits of hackers.  As for the WWW folks they are under a lot of fire for suposedly telling programers what they can and cant do with the various scripted languages they use to build sites etc.

Many IT leaders in business are warning their managment that Firefox must be kept out of the office,  I myself have banned its use within our company after testing showed many errors that allow malicious code within web pages to activate in FF but not in IE. I will keep a look out at what is happening with FF but until it gets fixed properly its just not worth the risk.

[Sethan]

If a site is properly designed using the existing standards, it will work properly on any compliant browser.

That is the whole reason for standards in the first place.

[Nemesis]

"Firefox is proving popular because, at the moment, it has far fewer security holes than Internet Explorer and has some innovations lacking in Microsoft's program. "

Not accoding to the NCC (National Computing Centre).  Firefox is known to be full of wholes with IE having had many years of work done to fix the errors and block the exploits of hackers.  As for the WWW folks they are under a lot of fire for suposedly telling programers what they can and cant do with the various scripted languages they use to build sites etc.

Can you provide a link?  I went looking and what I found was substantially different.

Link

It seems to be the NCC that you refer to and here is what they say:

On the web front, Mozilla's Firefox browser should easily take 15 per cent of the total market (from 6 per cent in October 2004, Reuters) by the end of 2005, and over 50 per cent among techically-oriented users (from 19 per cent in October 2004, ZDnet UK). With its many extensions, Firefox outshines its competitors on just about all adoption criteria bar one: the execution of Microsoft-only code. Many corporate Windows users, suffering the escalating cost of IE viruses, spyware, and cracks will consider this an enhancement rather than a drawback. Features and security are not the only compelling drivers for Firefox. IE's deficient implementation of cascading stylesheets (CSS) has long been an obstacle to accessible, visually appealing, and usable site design. Once the majority of web developers are using Firefox personally (early 2005) W3C standard CSS features, which IE doesn't implement, will appear on many sites. The risks are low, since Microsoft must implement these features in the next IE, and may even attempt an early spoiling release. If so, the spoiler will fail. Firefox will kill-off Microsoft's attempt to corner web programming through XAML and .Net.

Seems very pro Firefox to me.  Especially the part I marked in red.

From the same page:

The Gnome 2.8 desktop now surpasses the stock Windows desktop for ease of use and is on target to match MacOS X standards by early 2006.

Again the red is my highlighting.

[Bonk]

I have tested Dynaverse.net under IE, Mozilla, Firefox, Opera, Konqueror, Voyager and a few others I think... I cant imagine why any website wouldn't test under multiple browsers, isn't maximum exposure and accessibilty the whole point of a website? 

The other reason to test on all browsers is that if you develop for IE only, there is a good chance MS will screw with stuff and you'll have to re-write the whole thing anyway to match MS's new IE version. (inevitably containing new technology to try and force some artifical standard on the web so that IE will remain the dominant browser...) I'm not the anti-MS type either - what they are doing is self destructive.

I think I'll test Dynaverse.net on Lynx (a text only browser) next chance I get... hehe..

edit: Well, it works suprisingly well!  See attached image...

[toasty0]

The other reason to test on all browsers is that if you develop for IE only, there is a good chance MS will screw with stuff and you'll have to re-write the whole thing anyway to match MS's new IE version.

Honestly, Bonk, I have the deepest respect for your skills and knoweldge, but that sentence just does not make sense. All browsers change, not just IE, and so no matter which platform or browser you develop for you always have to test, retest, or debug and debug again.

[Bonk]

The other reason to test on all browsers is that if you develop for IE only, there is a good chance MS will screw with stuff and you'll have to re-write the whole thing anyway to match MS's new IE version.

Honestly, Bonk, I have the deepest respect for your skills and knoweldge, but that sentence just does not make sense. All browsers change, not just IE, and so no matter which platform or browser you develop for you always have to test, retest, or debug and debug again.

You are correct, that is a bit of a "knee-jerk" statement and not really what I meant to say.

This is more what I meant: If you design a website that uses features only for IE, then you stand a much greater chance of having to re-write it next year than if you folllow established standards.

I got burned once making that mistake so I'm definitely anti-IE-only web code, but then again I did put "live bookmark" tags on this site which is a Firefox only feature...  good catch bud - I depend on you guys to call me on this stuff. 

[toasty0]

Kind of a tangent to the usual IE versus Firefox thread, but this has been swirling about my bucket for a couple weeks now.

I no longer buy into the argument that the contest between IE and Firefox is about security. Rather it is about feature creep. And it will be feature creep alone that will define which browser will dominate the average user's attention over the next 2 to 5 years.

[drb]

Hoi Folks,

I depend on you guys to call me on this stuff.  

We have been tireless in our efforts to produce an ego-free Bonk, at last some results. hehe,lol,hehe

Sorry dude just couldn't help myself. I blame the apple fritter that called me out of bed from the fridge.

Take care

drb

[Bonk]

I no longer buy into the argument that the contest between IE and Firefox is about security. Rather it is about feature creep. And it will be feature creep alone that will define which browser will dominate the average user's attention over the next 2 to 5 years.

I concur. Firefox would seem to be leading that race for now. What irks me about Firefox is the gecko overhead and startup time. What irks me about IE is the refusal to handle PNGs properly (still don't understand why). anyhoo...

Hoi Folks,

I depend on you guys to call me on this stuff. 

We have been tireless in our efforts to produce an ego-free Bonk, at last some results. hehe,lol,hehe

Sorry dude just couldn't help myself. I blame the apple fritter that called me out of bed from the fridge.

Take care

drb

very funny drb, very funny...    now ya got me cravin an apple fritter too!

[Mr_Tricorder]

...I got burned once making that mistake so I'm definitely anti-IE-only web code, but then again I did put "live bookmark" tags on this site which is a Firefox only feature...  good catch bud - I depend on you guys to call me on this stuff. 

Adding browser-specific extra features is totally different than building a website that only works with a certain browser.  I don't see any reason why you shouldn't add Firefox-only features, Opera-only features, or even IE only features (if IE had any good features )

[Commander Maxillius]

both IE and Firefox allow different types of malware into your system.  IE's tend to be in-your-face and annoying, but largely just that: annoying.  The ones you get with Firefox are really hard to find and of a higher quality since it's harder to find Firefox's holes.

That being said, I have this thing called wscript.exe that eats my installation of Firefox every time I turn off my machine, so I had to put the installation file on the desktop as a workaround until I figure out how to permanently remove it.

This is the 2nd time I've killed the little bastard, and it's corresponding .PF file.

[Nemesis]

That being said, I have this thing called wscript.exe that eats my installation of Firefox

I googled for wscript.exe and found some info.  There is more if you choose to look.

Link to site

Author:  Microsoft Corp.
Part Of: Microsoft Windows Script Host

 Remove wscript.exe:   Use WinTasks

[toasty0]

both IE and Firefox allow different types of malware into your system.  IE's tend to be in-your-face and annoying, but largely just that: annoying.  The ones you get with Firefox are really hard to find and of a higher quality since it's harder to find Firefox's holes.

That being said, I have this thing called wscript.exe that eats my installation of Firefox every time I turn off my machine, so I had to put the installation file on the desktop as a workaround until I figure out how to permanently remove it.

This is the 2nd time I've killed the little bastard, and it's corresponding .PF file.

This is the first time I've heard of this problem. Is this a common conflict?

[Sethan]

The biggest reason I've found for sites not working properly in non-IE browsers is people using Frontpage for web design.

[Bonk]

The biggest reason I've found for sites not working properly in non-IE browsers is people using Frontpage for web design.

Worse yet, MS Word...

I fail to see what's wrong with notepad, my favorite text editor on the windows platform. I use it exclusively for php and html while working in windows.   Lately I have discovered the joys of Kwrite (KDE) nice n simple text editor that will highlight php code with the proper tags.

[toasty0]

The biggest reason I've found for sites not working properly in non-IE browsers is people using Frontpage for web design.

That's a big problem even for IE. Front Page sucks, was/is a piss poor idea from concept to execution.

It is also some of the most bloated markup since VBscript...

[toasty0]

The biggest reason I've found for sites not working properly in non-IE browsers is people using Frontpage for web design.

Worse yet, MS Word...

I fail to see what's wrong with notepad, my favorite text editor on the windows platform. I use it exclusively for php and html while working in windows.   Lately I have discovered the joys of Kwrite (KDE) nice n simple text editor that will highlight php code with the proper tags.

I won't lie--I'm a spoilt rotten little brat using Visual Studio Pro.

Just look at this. I open my web solution/project and with one mouse click I can edit the HTML or Javascript or C# or Visual Basic or C++.



And with the click of the mouse again I can edit the code behind pages or a deasktop application.



And that just scratching the surface of this IDE. Notepad? Well, I have used it in the past--and still do to keep in from becoming wizard lazy--but for ease of reading long pages of markup nothing beats using this IDE.

One of my least favorite tasks using notepad is debugging a syntax or spelling error.

[Bonk]

Cool!

http://www.eclipse.org offers similar features. But still a bit overkill for my use.