I wanted to have a look at the French Virgin Megastore website, and I got the attached image. It says:
The version of your browser does not allow browsing this site under Linux. You must install Firefox.
Well, I don't want to know how they are detecting the "correctness" of the browser (after all, this is Iceweasel, so it is Firefox), or why they are so stupid as to forbid browsing if the "correct" navigator is not used, but, well, they've just lost a customer.
5 comments:
that would cause a headache and is pretty damn idiotic
I bet they detect using the useragent, and Iceweasel, while 'being' firefox, is not firefox-branded, thus has no 'firefox' in its useragent.
I find it quite a shame to un-support an online store which obviously supports linux (though in a broken manner in regard to this browser detection mechanism). Sending them a mail informing them would be vastly more productive.
Though I do hate to allow people to get away with doing user agent checks on websites, sometimes there's no choice but to play along. In that case I use the User Agent Switcher plugin for Iceweasel to set my user agent string to match ff instead.
Lloeki, I don't agree with you. A website does not have to 'support' Linux. It just has to be standard-compliant, and leave it to the browser to be as well. A website that needs a specific browser is broken by design.
Vincent, good point. But to me 'supports linux' is just synonym with 'standards compliance' these days. I should really not post comments in such a rush (which, again, I'm doing right now).
And I totally agree that 'outsmarting' the user with user agent checks is just not the right thing to do.
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