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Walmart Rejects Firefox and Safari
babooo404 writes "Last week, Walmart launched their online video download service. Immediately there were posts that the service did not work with the Firefox or Safari browsers. There was a collective, "WTF" when this happened as this is 2007, not 1997. Now it appears that reports are out that Walmart has completely turned off the ability to get into the application at all by Firefox, Safari or any other browser it does not like."
And the internets was all like "double-you tee eff, mate?"
Raises its ugly head. I can't tell you how many development groups I'd seen hobbled by outside politics vs real-world applications and logic. Sounds all conspiracy theoryish, but in the world of marketing, you can't get away from these things. Looks like Wall Mart got the Microsoft Kool-Aid.
I mean come on, doesn't everyone know that the internet is run on Windows software and IE is the only REAL web browser! Anyone who uses anything else MUST be a hacker trying to break their site.
Which is why I use a user-agent that says "I am not a Googlebot/2.1". But change it to IE or something else if websites don't like it.
I wank in the shower.
They're not called the Evil Store Of Death for nothing.
I wonder who developed the video download site for walmart. It doesn't look or feel anything like the rest of their site.
Shocking revelation: one big profit driven multinational corporation being paid by another big profit driven multinational corporation to do something they probably shouldn't be doing. Whatever next?
I guess they just lost the chance in getting my money.
Well, I take that back, they never had a chance at getting my money.
As I walk through the valley of death I fear no one, for I am the meanest sonova bitch in the valley!
Firefox users by their very nature are the sort of people to try something new. Firefox is something you have to go out of your way to install on Windows, it's not bundled with Windows, and so I rather suspect that the 15% (approx) of internet users who have it as their primary browser are among the top 15% of people who are most likely to try a new video download service. Walmart are blocking the very people who will try this thing.
Now, if I were a Walmart stock holder I'd be asking some very searching questions about whether or not the board is acting in my best interest with this move. If I invest in a company I expect the people running it to work to make my investment pay a good return. Hell, they have a legal duty to do so (in the UK where I live anyway).
http://twitter.com/onion2k
What are Apple users doing going to Walmart to get media, don't they have iMedia or somthing vastly superior to anything Walmart & Microsoft would produce ?
Wanna fight ? Bend over, stick your head up your ass, and fight for air.
The sheep that march to Walmart's "Low Prices -- Whatever the Cost" beat will not be affected. They are good consumers. Not hippie freaks, using products that cannot be found on the acres of shelving at Walmart. Walmart understands the threat of free software. Walmart understands the danger of choice. Give the customers too many choices, and they just furrow their brows endlessly, taking forever to make a purchase, or worse, not making one at all!
Oh no! ... I can't buy stuff from Walmart!
... let them. Let them mix their trash with M$ trash.
If they want to be Windows only
I don't use Internet Explorer. It doesn't work. I won't be using Wal-Mart's video service.
FTA: "The video that you download requires Digital Rights Management 10 (DRM 10) software"
So, the video only works in Windows (Media Player 10+, presumably). I think it's safe to assume that if you have WMP10, you also have IE, so if making the site IE-only prevents* people from accessing it who can't use the product anyway, what's the big deal?
*Yeah, yeah. "I don't WANNA use IE on my Windows box. IE sucks." It's not like you have to UNinstall Firefox to do so, so suck it up, princess.
Well, the video service is dead in the water. One wonders if this was a marketing ploy to drive traffic or simple market research. What better way to see how many people give a damn about firefox/Max/Opera than to disable it on a fairly high volume site. Of course, to cover up their inability to handle the traffic, we'll probably hear a story how their new service was "hacked".
I've been on the fence about shopping at walmart for awhile. They're never my first choice, and I think I've only been shopping there about 5 times in the past year. After this, it's one more reason not to shop there. Yet another reason - unrelated - was that the last couple times I've been there I had great service from a particular employee. In both cases I made a point to call up the store's regional manager and praise this person. Two months later I found out that this employee had not received any mention, acknowledgement or recognition. Just seemed to speak volumes about how they treat their people, and this latest move speaks to how they treat their customers.
creation science book
Bit Torrent still works. It's completely cross-platform, too.
(When I said "Don't worry," I was saying that to the customers. WalMart should worry.)
-- My Weblog.
...what happens when one configures a browser to identify itself as I.E. on Windows and goes to their site?
Would anyone higher up hear about it if a bunch of us went into Walmart, filled carts full, then asked someone in customer in the video department about the online videos browser/platform support, and then just walked out on getting an unsatisfactory answer?
I'm surprised the article's author didn't try a user agent string from IE7. I couldn't reach what I velieve to be the web site in question in either Firefox or IE, so the site just may be having problems at the moment.
It'a all cool. I reject Walmart. So there.
(1) The slashweenie community don't want to pay for anything, so they aren't customers, so keeping them out won't lose any money.
(2) On the other hand the sort of people who hack DRM systems are most likely nerds who have a religious antipathy to IE, so won't be able to get onto to site in order to work out how to hack it.
(3) So, by restricting access to IE they have achieved the following:
(a) delayed, possibly by as much as many days, the hacking of the DRM system, thus protecting their business model for long enough for them to actually make a little money
(b) lost exactly $0.00 in business that they wouldn't have got from the slashweenies anyway.
Sounds like a good decision.
I fail to see the news-worthiness of this (besides, it's a trendy thing to say on ./ these days). Maybe because I'm not living in the US? I don't know, are they abusing their dominant position in the market here? I thought they were NEW in this market? If they don't think it's worth penetrating the entire market, oh well. Big deal.
This sounds like bad coding more than some browser-war.
Next, once millions of people are using the service, we will be forced to "upgrade" to new computers, running Vista, in order to keep using it.
The meaning of your Life is up to you. Mean well. -- Me, 9/11/2001
A lot of people thought this would go the way of their last video offering. It now seems that they are dedicated to making it a failure. Too bad, the more competitors in the on-line video business, the better.
http://bgcommonsense.blogspot.com
The Walmart video download site (http://mediadownloads.walmart.com/) appears to be Slashdotted already, so I can't check to see if it's just a UA check or something that actually won't work outside of IE (Like ActiveX controls).
Think of this as a favor on Walmart's side. They only want to suck money out of sackers who use IE. They spared FF/Safari users from their greed, so to say...
How many of FF/Safari users out there sincerely want to buy movies from Walmart? I don't even live in the States, so I wouldn't even try.
If you want to use this service, the downloads require Digital Rights Management 10 (DRM 10) software. This doesn't just lock out browsers that they don't know how to code for, but also all non-Microsoft operating systems.
The fact the Walmart is behind this also scares me. Walmart has changed the face of American retail for good and bad. Walmart has been able to force it's suppliers to bow to their knees for fear that Walmart doesn't carry their product. If the number one retailer in the world would have realized what their customers want, media without restrictions, this could have actually fought and easily won against the iTunes store, and NetFlix. I just hope this doesn't catch on, because it will give other retailers another justification to place Microsoft's desires above that of the consumers.
The part I dont like is people continue to support these tactics by using/patronizing the products/places that are directly responsible to taking away their choice and alternative. Wise up people. You may one day wake up to find you have no options left.
boycott slashdot February 10th - 17th check out: altSlashdot.org
Does anyone know if the movies are the altered "family friendly" versions of real versions?
It is better to be the hammer than the anvil.
we can always /. it
root of all...
Do trailer parks even have broadband?
Lauch.com still doesnt support Firefox for their audio streams and goes the more than doubtful way of attempting to install a flavor of the Mozilla ActiveX Plugin (bases on this one, just with the WMP ActiveX Plugin and their page in the whitelist) This gets more funny when u go to a european MTV side and start thier "Overdrive" plattform, which will attempt exactly the same. I guess this wide use(without contributing to the code at all) is the very reason why there isn't any ActiveX Plugin for Firefox 2.0 yet on the original page.. But going back it s just idiotic to try to get the user to install it at all.. it s not stable enough.. it s more a proove of concept than mission critical code.. and it s more to bypass the problem of sites that are coded in an IE only way... There is a WMP plugin for Mozilla Browsers!!! You just have to script it properly (with JS that is) it s not rocket science. Why am i telling this all? My point is: if Yahoo and MTV can't do this, why should out of all Walmart be able to? (okay it seems like MTV_com is better.. i just cant open any video cause it seems to check the IP and then says they cant show me that in my country... IP block cause of IP rights.. isnt it ironic? i know, proxy is the solution) On a sidenote AOL doesnt seem to be any better.. right it s AOL... hey guys... if your new strategy really shall work you better.. ah hell we have told you a million times...
another million $ amount has mysteriously disappeared from Microsofts accounts
Seriously, are we surprised at Walmart's ignorance? C'mon, they don't give a flying fuck. I had identity theft back in 1999 and some fucker stole my checks and wrote 50% of them at Walmart. Walmart accepted all of them and when I tried to straighten it out they could give a shit.
precisely why they do not care about what browser you use.
I reject your reality
I can't even get to the site ( http://mediadownloads.walmart.com/ ) on Internet Explorer.
I'm surprised that someone hasn't created a nice way to stuff the server logs of websites that insist on only supporting noncompliant proprietary browsers. If a just 1000 Safari users visited Wal-Mart's site and reloaded the page once every 30 seconds, they'd generate nearly 3 million page views per day. And with a little app to help, one could even erase cookies between reloads or use of proxies to look more like 3 million unique visitors.
What would a company think if the majority of logged visits came from unsupported browsers?
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
This is the danger of letting them exist at all. They will restrict choice as they get more and more powerful. Sure its their right when they are small, but as they approach the status of monopoly the rules change.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
If they don't provide the ability for users of other browsers, that's their choice as a business - your choice as a consumer would be to go elsewhere or comply. Just like shopping in the real store.
It was Wal-Mart that starting selling PC with Linspire preloaded instead of Windows, in order to have a low cost machine. Now they are supporting MS exclusively.
If you can't beat them, embrace and extend them.
The website for Wal-Mart employees to check on their benefits is the same way.
http://www.walmartbenefits.com/
They are the 800 pound gorilla, and they believe that they can do no wrong. For decades, Wally World has been the poster child for everything that is wrong about corporations getting too big.
"In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act!" -- George Orwell (Eric Arthur Blair)
Just another in a long list of great reasons NOT to shop at WalMart :-)
Once a year I have to install IE on a machine just to say my benefits haven't changed. Walmartbenefits.com (also needed for electronic tax info) will not work with anything else. I've tried. At least now I can get IE working under linux easily and don't have to throw together a windows box just for that crap.
and the WalMart site just crashes and burns. Not only won't it format, but all the fill in boxes return an invalid data response.
WallyWorld screwed the pooch on this one. It doesn't even look that great with IE6. I can't even imagine how stupid are the idiot managers who run the meetings and set employee goals.
WalMart has jumped the shark, short the stock.
That sold a customized PC running Linux that did not have IE?
I get (after a few refreshes) (rendered as text from the server) an HTML page that reads: "The Wal-Mart Video Downloads store is currently unavailable due to temporary site maintenance. We apologize for any inconvenience."
Either they're fixing it or are slashdotted?
As much as I hate Walmart, they did sell the Linspire systems; I think this is laziness more than intention.
Returned Peace Corps IT Volunteer
The Wal-Mart Video Downloads store is currently unavailable due to temporary site maintenance. We apologize for any inconvenience.
davecb5620@gmail.com
Just more money I won't be giving to walmart.
Anyone know if spoofing resolves this? I thought I'd try it just now, but the link on the wal-Mart site to the downloads section seems to be slashdotted(?).
Also, does anyone know if Wal-Mart does something similar to that with its music downloads?
The simple solution. I wouldn't shop at Walmart if it were the only store in the nation.
Please, slow news day is it? This is hardly ground breaking news.
Simple, if they design their shop to only work with specific products, and you dont use those products, SHOP ELSE WHERE. Simple!
Has everybody on this planet (expecially Amerika - the so called land of the free , what a joke) forgotten how to shop around or are you all sheeple "Must give money to walmart, must give money to walmart" drones?
Please, wise up, you are just making a laughing stock of yourselves.
I wonder if the ie tab will work.
"You'll get nothing, and you'll like it!"
They trade at NYSE under the WMT ticker symbol. They closed at 47.97 on Friday of last week.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
Seriously what are they thinking. Do they not know that some people who use IE will find any excuse to download using Bittorrent. Including not supporting their best friend's preferred browser.
I think its interesting that the majority of comments so far place Slashdotters in the demographic of people who don't shop at Walmart. I believe this is mistaken, or at least a gross over generalization. I for one am a poor college student, I shop at Walmart because I don't tons of money that would let me shop at other places. Lets face it, Walmart is often cheaper for many products. So, to stretch the $50, that are all I have to my name at the moment, the farthest I shop at Walmart. I also use Firefox, so I don't think its really fair to lump the people who use Firefox with those who are financially stable enough to shop else where than Walmart. Remember, living below the poverty line doesn't mean you're stupid, it does mean that you have to make some decisions as to what you'll spend your money on. As in, if I want to have my own computer and high-speed internet (which I see as a necessity since I'm a CS major and do undergraduate research in machine learning), then I shop for groceries, clothes, etc. where they are the least expensive.
Snapper didn't, they refused to make their stuff crappier for walmart in order to "compete". We had an article here to that effect. Granted, one supplier out of thousands, but it proves it is still possible, and the demographic that buys riding lawnmowers (very broadly speaking) is the same one that rents or buys a lot of media and electronic devices. And I know in my rural area that the independent small engine shops are still doing great business, even though the local walmart sells small engine stuff too, they don't sell the quality that most guys want once they have been burned by craptastic stuff for a few bucks less. Nothing more annoying than to be out on the job and your mower goes TU, your string trimmer won't start, etc. I buy a LOT of that stuff, and walmart gets zero business on that score from me, because they carry nothing at the decent high end that is actually functional for more than one season with heavy use.
Walmart is weird. they have the potential to do a lot of good, witness their latest "green" push where they want to sell 100 million (whatever) compact fluorescent bulbs, and are going to solar and wind power for their stores as much as possible. Then they turn around and use those lao gai near slave labor factories and import junk that breaks all the time. It's like they can't make up their minds.
Just FYI , Slashdot looks broken under IE7 .
While I use FF at home, and I haven't noticed any problems with it , I use IE7 at work , and there are plenty of CSS positioning problems in IE7 . While standards are cute and important and all , sites are created for users , not webmasters .
My Starcraft 2 Blog
I think that, more interesting than the lack of support for Firefox, Safari, Opera, et al is the fact that it does not seem to support Linux. Specifically Kubuntu 6.10 with Opera 9.10 got me this little nugget of joy:
We're sorry, your operating system is incompatible. To provide the best download experience, we can no longer support Windows 98, ME or NT. Please visit again after you upgrade to Windows 2000 or XP. Visit our Help section for complete system requirements information.
Same exact issue with IE6 (ies4Linux) as well.
Honestly, I wouldn't be using Wal-Mart of all places to download my music, but it is still somewhat of a poke in the eye, not just to alternative browsers, but alternative Operating Systems as well, it would appear.
"We may face a scorched and lifeless earth, but they're accountable to their shareholders first."
HP is the company that is providing the video download service [Video Merchant Service], so really the platform questions should be addressed to them. Of course, putting pressure on Walmart to put pressure on HP would probably get better results since Walmart is a direct customer of HP.
Channel 4 (UK), Amazon, Blockbuster, etc. iTunes isn't in the same league, but still requires the use of a seperate app. Even some uploading is restricted, Metacafe (as was mentioned on /. a few weeks ago) uses flash (!) to upload videos and can't handle linux contributors.
There is currently no legal competition for the likes of TPB and Mininova, and thus the movie producers will keep losing out.
Didn't Walmart start selling Linux based low-end PCs?
I doubt they did it, they paid for someone else to provide the service, and are currently probrably on the phone with their consultants going, 'WTF?!?!'
-- I'm the root of all that's evil, but you can call me cookie..
WalMart is so profitable because it targets average middle America. Its niche happens to be precisely the vast bulk of people who don't know much about computers and stick with the default Internet Explorer. Because the company targets this niche so successful, it obviously would feel little need to ensure that its site works with the minority of users who use other browsers. It's not fear of hackers, it's just a desire to do as little work as possible. In any event, should we really care about not being to shop online at Wal-Mart?
I had the same, "oh, so what?" reaction at first, but your post made me realize: Walmart's dominance in the marketplace (and indeed, calling them a "niche" retailer is hysterical) means that all those grandmothers, aunts, uncles, significant others, friends, etc which we have spent time convincing to use some other browser ("It works with almost everything, PLEASE use it instead of Internet Explorer") hit walmart.com and get a big "I DO NOT WORK WITH THIS SILLY LITTLE BROWSER."
What happens? Grandpa mutters something, we look like idiots/liars, the alternative browser never gets used again, and Internet Explorer's market share creeps back up. Grandpa tells his buddies at the VFW that his "rocket scientist" grandson installed some "Flame squirrel" browser that didn't *even* work with *Walmart's* website. Etc.
By the way, folks- it's best to encourage people to use almost anything but IE, and not just ONE other browser, to encourage standards compliance. Already, site designers seem to only care/brag about making sites work in IE or Firefox- and said site breaks in Safari, Opera, etc. That's not how the web is supposed to work.
Please help metamoderate.
Microsoft supporting SuSE. Wal-Mart selling on-line video's only to IE users... I sense a disturbance in the force
Relocating to San Francisco / Palo Alto... Hire me?
Would any business in their right mind open a shop and say:
"You can only buy from us if you wear blue trousers when you come in"
It's no different in my mind to "You can only use Microsoft Internet Explorer 6 Build 1234 at this site".
I have a simple rule. If the site does not work with my choice of OS/Browser, then they lose my business.
Thats just consumer choice in action. Walmart will do nothing about it unless they lose significant business,
which they won't as long as Windows/Internet Explorer accounts for 90% of the user base.
For Firefox users who need to pretend they're using IE to get into the site: User Agent Switcher extension ...this may also be a good time for you Safari users to try out Firefox :)
btw, I know that the site may throw all kinds of errors if you're browsing in Firefox, seeing as how they don't test for anything but IE.
Geeks like to think that they can ignore politics, you can leave politics alone, but politics won't leave you alone.-rms
I agree, I see this as just another incentive (as if one was needed) not to give walmart my money.
They sell ISP access via Netscape and AOL: http://www.walmart.com/catalog/catalog.gsp?cat=103 468
Does the site work with their respective browsers?
if they don't want my business, then i move on to someone that does.
oh well,,,,,,
Except that every computer has IE installed. What is the average user going to do? Write walmart a nasty letter because firefox won't work on their site, or just click on the little blue "e" and copy the URL into internet explorer? You must remember that us techno-geeks don't make up a whole lot of marketshare. The average user is just going to use what works.
I got nothin'
i'm not likely to buy products from walmart's online service anyway because they're the evil empire. but also the fact that IE7 is being forced down our throats, and the fact that it sucks, means any web services that are IE-only will be ones I do not bother to use.
Remember kids, if you're not paying for the service, YOU ARE THE PRODUCT THAT IS BEING SOLD.
They don't like my browser?
Ok, I won't go to their site, they might get offended. I'm sure that they don't want the money intoxicated with this Firefox thing.
You are missing large groups of Firefox users. While I (and presumably most Slashdot readers) fall into the category you mention (well, kind of), you are missing a group I believe is much larger. How many users have *you* converted to Firefox? Users who would not fall into the normal "geek" category, you seem to believe in.
Personally, I've converted most of my family and close friends. They significantly outnumber me, so if other "geeks" do the same, the *average* Firefox user is going to be much closer to "average joe" than you assume - without a need to "try something new" or be a geek.
When I think of WalMart I don't think of online digital downloads... heck I don't even think of online at all.
I think of China's storefront, minimum wage workers, and minimum wage shoppers.
If they don't want to develop their online content for Firefox, Safari, or any other browser in use - then to hell with them. They're destined to fail again online.
Except that every computer has IE installed.
So every hard drive I purchase has IE installed on it? Wow! I was wondering how that got onto my home-built machine.
According to the Inquirer, it seems to be a wonderfully dreadful combination of cluelessness, a horrible CMS and definitely non-standard HTML (or whatever) code. Just run the page through the W3C validator...
I mean, two contradicting doctype declarations in one page? And it only gets worse.
www.thepiratebay.org
This is another reason why Linux will never succeed on the desktop unless it embraces DRM technologies.
If Joe Sixpack can't rent or buy his movies over the web on Linux like he can on Windows, he isn't going to want to use Linux. Joe doesn't care *why* it doesn't work, and all the slashdot ranting in the world won't change that from his perspective Linux is defective since it doesn't work with his video / music download site. It won't work with his high def DVD that he can play just fine on Vista since that will support DRM. Etc.
The only chance for Linux to succeed on the desktop is to embrace DRM, or it will increasingly be locked out from modern content and that will make it even less desirable for the average person to want to use.
Signatures are a waste of bandwi (buffering...)
So Walmart doesn't work with FF and Safari... boo f'in hoo! As stated before by others, they need to target their audience and their audience doesn't give a care to browser wars. As far as they (the audience, i.e., middle America) are concerned, browser wars are something that geeks are into (if they even know what it is). Geeks - like the ones who got beat the f up in high school. Besides, do YOU shop Walmart (and if you're from a country where there's no Walmart, you're vote / opinion doesn't count)?
When will you ever see this headline in a mainstream newspaper or magazine? Come on ...
To serve only self is the ultimate slavery.
Of course once users do get in the website, they'll most likely find that the available content if wrapped in MS-only DRM. So getting in with Safari or Firefox (on a non Windows machine) would presumably be pointless anyway (except possibly to transfer the data to a windows machine at a later time, assuming that such a thing is even possible).
May contain traces of nut.
Made from the freshest electrons.
When visiting the music site, it states "Sorry, we can no longer support your OS.. Windows 98/me/nt are no longer supported" (or something to that extent). Classic.. Not only do require IE, they don't even support most Microsoft OS's. Sad, but typical. Lazy coding and/or politics force sales of XP/2003/Vista. The good thing is that no one uses Walmart to purchase music or video (and even less will now).
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= - The Celtic - =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
If you don't like what Wal-Mart is doing the answer is pretty simple -- don't shop there.
This is one of those things where the market will correct itself. The natural evolutionary path being that they will lose market share to users of non-Windows based platforms as well as Windows users that use non-IE browsers. That's probably a fair segment of the market.
This problem will take care of itself.
It's true no man is an island, but if you take a bunch of dead guys and tie 'em together, they make a good raft.
When I hit this sort of thing I usually send them a comment like "
I'm glad to see your business is doing well enough to get rid of potential
customers that don't use IE. bye"
Not a customer of Walmart anyway to it makes no diff.
Walmart internet download ---->BETA----
You must have missed the poster's other line: us techno-geeks don't make up a whole lot of marketshare.
I highly doubt there's many average users who have home-built PCs without Windows.
Duct tape is like the Force. It has a light side, a dark side, and it holds the universe together.
Seems fair, I've been rejecting Wal-Mart for a long time now.
Who gives a shit anyway? Walmart is going to censor all the videos on their site anyway. When you have sites like YouTube and Google Video, who cares about Walmart?
Wal*Mart can't even match Google. Google sells videos, mind you you can only watch them in the browser window (I think) and they support IE and FireFox and Safari and Opera (last I checked). They even have stuff you'll never find at Wal*Mart like Plan 9 From Outer Space or D.O.A. (both worth watching, even if just for the hilarity of Ed Wood). Google even plays both sides of the game and supports two competing devices (iPod and PSP). True, if you don't download for those devices, you have to use Google's Video Player, but that just downloads a GVI file which is essentially an AVI file (easy enough to fix).
Rawr
Seriously, who really cares? It is not as if there aren't any other options out there just spend your money elsewhere. If a company wants to cut themselves off from a market what is the point of pissing and moaning about it? Let them flop....who cares?
I am now waiting for a Firefox extension to be released which will crack the Walmart Walls Do I really need to :-o
Best is if Walmart keeps the videos to itself
You're exaggerating to say that 35 percent of the market uses something other than IE. As a Safari user, I'd certainly like more people to use anything other than IE, simply because it forces sites to pay attention to cross-platform compatibility. But IE still controls something like 80 percent of the market.
= 0
http://marketshare.hitslink.com/report.aspx?qprid
I understand your point, but lets counterserve.
I had been considering, for a while, maybe getting one of the cheap small players at wal-mart. Now that I know the service locks out my browser, as I refuse to use IE, I have no desire for one of the devices.
Wal-Mart has just lost business. Oh, I'll still shop for things there, but they won't be getting money for music from me.
You will be baked, and there will be cake.
No IE 6, anyway. The Mac has a primitive IE. It's even pre-installed.
This tagline was transcoded to result in at least one smirk. If you experience failure to smirk, please consult your Gen
The most popular portable video player (by far) is the ipod. Do the math.
Help! I'm a slashdot refugee.
Free hand o'commerce, bitches.
not any more.
Never ask for directions from a two-headed tourist! -Big Bird
It used to be pre-installed, yes. My iBook G4 had IE 5.2 preinstalled. My MacBook did not come with IE at all.
Government's idea of a balanced budget: take money from the right pocket to balance...oh who am I kidding?
"Site Temporarily Unavailable. The Wal-Mart Video Downloads store is currently unavailable due to temporary site maintenance. We apologize for any inconvenience. Pleae try again later."
So, maybe they're about to fix it? After all, they do label it as "beta". If it only works with IE 6+, I'd consider that a significant bug worth fixing.
And so are IE View and IE Tab. What computer with Microsoft Windows OS runs Firefox and isn't capable of running IE just for Walmart.com and Windows Update?
The site works fine in Opera 9.
That's simply not true. Modern IE is Windows-only. IE5 was the last version that had any non-Windows implementations. MS abandoned both the MacOS and Solaris versions years ago, leaving them full of holes that will never be fixed and non-functional on modern systems. Apple is shipping half a million Macs every month without IE and with no way to run IE without an emulator, virtual machine, or dual-boot setup.
This is true, but off-target. The Mac segment of the home computer population (which is significantly larger than the Linux segment or the Mac share of new sales) is not mostly "techno-geeks" at all. Depending on whose numbers you believe (and WM's internal numbers might be best for them...) the shunning of non-IE browsers locks out 7-20% of users completely, and they are generally a more affluent segment.
Of course, that does not mean the decision by WM is not smart business. They know all about market segmentation and how to focus on winnable games. The no-IE segment is messy and expensive to serve, and the biggest slice (Mac users) has a lock-in to the existing dominant player in commercial video download: Apple. There's also a problem with the content providers: they demand strong DRM and that is hard to provide without staying MS-only or being Apple.
This is interesting because all the kiosks at my store that let you view the Wal-mart website claim to be running "Mozilla" in the error messages when you try and go to a page it doesn't want you to go to (Anything outside Wal-mart's pages). Also, the service is in beta, so it's possible they might open up support for other browsers, but not likely.
I have to agree with the masses here. why would the worlds largest retailer make such a decision?
that's like walmart refusing to sell to people who use discover card. oh wait. the point is, it's a consumers' market. excluding certain consumers for their choice in web browser is just as silly as excluding them for their choice in credit card. Granted, discover card doesn't have the largest market share, but programming your new internet application for use in only internet explorer, is just an incredibly short-sighted business decision.
Just as it is an incredibly short-sighted business decision by any company today.
The real issue here is: if you follow the standards IE won't render it properly.
so they follow IE and the rest won't work.
They're using their grammar skills there.
I develop web applications for Firefox first and foremost; and quite frankly as far as I am concerned, if it works in IE then that's a happy accident, a bonus. Anybody can run Firefox -- even if you've got a one-of-a-kind computer, you can just download the source code and compile it. Only Windows users can run IE. And that means not me, because I'm running pretty much the same application stack on my desktop box as any ISP -- Linux (it's close enough to Solaris as makes no difference for the purposes I care about; and as soon as OpenSolaris can read and write ext3, I will dual boot), Apache, MySQL and PostgreSQL for databases, and Bash, Perl, Python and PHP for scripting.
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
Is there some version of "ies4linux" available for OSX?
I think the source should be available to compile...would that work?
Disclaimer:
I use Kubuntu "Dapper Drake", but heard that OSX was based on a BSD/Linux-type kernal.(?)
Down With Slashdot BETA!!! I've been around the corner and seen the oliphant; you can only abuse me from your perspecti
Oooh Wal-mart is just shaking in their boots about the potential lost business here.
Right now, the site says "down for maintenance" - even under FF. Is this a change for the better?
I didn't really say everything I said -Yogi Berra
Comment removed based on user account deletion
This story won't die and keeps popping up. But no one seems to care that the drm used for the videos will only work in windows. Which means safari support would be extremely retarded, and firefox support isn't needed. What would be the point in letting someone purchase drm video through firefox when they might not be on a windows platform. It makes perfect sense to restrict a windows only product to ie, it's a safe guard to prevent people who can't use the videos from buying them. If walmart allowed purchases through firefox, everyone would be freaking out about how non windows users can buy videos they can't play.
Why does anyone care that they can't give Wal*Mart any more money? Especially for things they can buy elsewhere?
IIRC, there was a big splash last year about Walmart selling Linux PC's.
Perhaps the Linux PCs didn't sell very well and WarMart decided that there was no need to support Linux at the customer level.
IIRC there was a more recent article about WarMart using Linux internally. That would be no surprise since WarMart has been a pioneering and aggressive user of technology since the 1960s. I believe they have been using a common UNIX platform worldwide since around 1991.
You mean to tell me people with a conscience buy things from Walmart?
r esnum=0&ct=result&cd=1&q=walmart+destroys&spell=1
o yee&btnG=Search
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&sa=X&oi=spell&
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=walmart+empl
I'm starting to get that, "alone in a cold cold world", feeling.
Having to work for a living is the root of all evil.
As of right now, the Walmart Video download service is "currently unavailable due to temporary site maintenance. We apologize for any inconvenience." Maybe they realized their mistake and are trying to fix it?
Well what ever happened somebody is scrambling over there
TFA said the site rejected non-ie browsers on non M$ OS's, now the site is down, it told Firefox on Linux, site unavailable, I changed the user agent to report IE 6 on WinXP and the site is still unavailable, on a real WinXP machine using IE7 the site is still unavailable so I guess that the site is broken. I wouldn't doubt the problem revolves around the fact that they were offers discount coupons for the inconvenience; My first thought was "cool log in on a Linux machine get bounced and get a coupon, get on WinXP and redeem the discount, almost like being paid to use Firefox!" Guess I'm not really surprised it didn't last, but in there defense the video site was marked beta quite prominently.
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
... the last couple times I've been there I had great service from a particular employee. In both cases I made a point to call up the store's regional manager and praise this person. Two months later I found out that this employee had not received any mention, acknowledgement or recognition.
Two theories
(1) Such quality service may be the expected day-to-day norm, so management may have put the employee in the "meeting expectations" bucket and hence warranted no attention. As opposed to the "needs improvement" bucket which does warrant attention.
(2) Providing "too much" service to a single customer is a negative in management's eyes and you did the employee no favor with your praise. When a store's strategy is price leadership cost cutting may rule customer interaction. Employees may be expected to always be exceptionally friendly and polite but offer little more than telling you what isle to find something on. More expensive retailers that focus on customer service would be more appreciative of your call. Say a Macy's sales rep in a clothing department spending 5 minutes with you picking matching shirts and ties. In short, "good" varies with corporate strategy.
The Wal-Mart Benefits website (currently down), beyond being a UI disaster, has dire warnings plastered all over the place regarding browsers that don't conform to the anti-standards snobbery of the web designers. One of the most critical sections of the website, the ability to view pay stubs online, is strictly IE-only. My Mac-using BF, who is otherwise a Camino zealot, keeps an antiquated and likely insecure copy of IE5.5/Mac on his computer, for no other purpose than to view his pay stubs.
Range Voting: preference intensity matters
phuck. good riddence. last time i tried to buy a music CD at walmart i got tricked into buying a censored album. Good thing i opened the album in my car and listened to it before driving home. After hearing a bunch of sentences with strange blank spots I walked right back into the store and had to argue with the idiots that i didnt want such rubbish and that no i didnt have a CD copier in my car.
i can imagine their crappy movies are just the same. With such a closed minded mentality ill be happy to see them fail. There are a dozen other places to download movies (legally). Walmart has always catered to the stereotypical soccer mom that drives around in a Mercury minivan and is thoroughly convinced that her kids are being more negatively influenced by seeing a boob on TV than by their own theories about a guy that translated metal tablets to english using special glasses that then magically disappeared.
Ill say it again; Good riddence.
Lenovo-compatible PC"? What the FUCK? yes our DRM software require all of the current ChiCom backdoors to insure user compliance with our EULA's by means of user monitoring.
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
I've established a bizarre equilibrium in my life. The amount of my money that gets funneled towards IT companies is directly proportionate to the degree that they support my platform (predominantly Linux/FireFox/AMD/ATI... note: ATI is really walking a fine line). If I visit a site and it doesn't work for me, none of my money seems to go in that direction. Of course this isn't to say that if a company's products work on my platform they are guaranteed to get my money, it's only to say if they don't work on my platform, they are guaranteed not to get it.
Amount Given To Walmart in the last 5 years: $0
Projection for the next 5 years: $0
Message to Walmart: "Good luck with that."
Alternate Message to Walmart: "Game over, better luck next time."
This is another one of those crap articles that links to a blog, which links to other blogs, and doesn't link to the actual source of the problem.
Which is WalMart Video Downloads (Beta).. And which is currently returning the message "Site Temporarily Unavailable The Wal-Mart Video Downloads store is currently unavailable due to temporary site maintenance. We apologize for any inconvenience. Please try again later."
So see what happens when it comes back up.
Of course, the real problem is probably that, having downloaded, you can only play the resulting download with Windows Media Player.
One more reason not to shop at Wal-Mart. I just don't do it, ever. I've ridden a motorcycle around the US for years, and saw many "dead" and dying towns - and a shiny new huge parking lot with a Wal-Mart on one end. It didn't take a rocket scientist to figure it out. Now Wal-Mart is the company store for many in America. It's sad. So much for diversity in the marketplace.
A defense contractor in Antarctica is a bad idea. Get Raytheon OUT of Antarctica.
Didn't Walmart start selling Linux based low-end PCs?
Only so that they would be able to discount the cost of Windows. They would tell people who bought these computers to use the Windows CD that came with their old computer and use that to install Windows.
In case of fire, do not use elevator. Use water!
They misspelled "DRM protection".
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
Sure there are probably a few difficult to do work arounds (as it takes more than changing a user agent to get this to play nice). According to some developers, using "flash" is a workaround in and of itself since it "displays the same in all browsers". Of course, that isn't really true, and even when flash does display, I can't resize flash, the fonts are often so tiny that I & my elderly parents have to break out a magnifying glass to even attempt to make use of the content.
I still expect that when I attempt Ecommerce on the web that I'll likely have to use IE 6 or better at some point. I have been pleasantly surprised as of late that most of the companies I've delt with on the web allowed me to complete transactions in Opera and/or Mozilla/Firefox. One of the ironies I've encountered is that it is often the bigger companies which make it impossible to use IE & not the smaller shops. Sometimes you come across a poorly coded site on a small shop, but the large companies try to add everything under the sun to allegedly make the experience better and it ends up breaking things. Larger companies tend to set up more roadblocks of endless forms to fill out as well, and forced registration..etc I've abandoned more purchases due to if I can't complete my transaction in two screens (and really only want one) then its not worth my time to buy there. If it takes 20 minutes to checkout, to hell with them -- my time isn't free. Amazon.com will *never* have me as a customer due to their checkout. I don't care if I only have to fill it out once. If it takes longer on the web to order than calling the place on the phone, I'm not going to do business with them -- and if I have to use flash to complete the transaction, I'm likely not going to do business with them either as many of the applications written for it break in other browsers without reporting an error despite the touts of many developers that "flash makes everything display and work the same".
Freedom is merely privilege extended unless enjoyed by one and all.
No. This is Walmart's competitor to the iTunes Store. And Mac users are not welcome. It's almost as if Walmart doesnt't want to actually succeed. They've up and launched a competing solution, and then told a very large chunk of potential switchers that there will be no easy migration. This goes way beyond stupid and in to the territory of not working in stockholder's interests.
We all know that there are no technical reasons for Walmart's store to be IE only. Either Walmart does not want the store to be successful, or they are being bribed to make it IE-only, or their studio-approved DRM is Windows-only. No matter what, there is something underhanded going on here.
I honestly belive this was some sort of new-age marketing scheme to get people to blog about it. Everyone and their dog blogged about this... and now everyone knows that Walmart offers video downloads. http://www.jeremydavid.com/old/2007/02/10/walmarts -clever-little-firefox-ploy/
It's either that or drive 30 miles to find an alternative. Waste gas, or shop at Wal-mart.
No, but there are a lot of people who aren't techie who own Macs
for the love of god, PLEASE DON'T TAUNT THE NORWEGIANS!
There is no need to even check which browser anymore but they got some old school programmer who just kept the checking code.
Some idiot need to get a new job.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
I for one accept our new Walmart usability under-lords. I hope Walmart get scarred from this and learned to be more compatible with their customers.
"To be is to do." --Socrates
"To do is to be." -- Aristotle
"Do-Be-Do-Be-Do..." --Sinatra
Aw, man. Using firefox means I won't be able to buy DRM'ed video which is most likely censored, from Walmart. Darnit!
Kharma is like a boomerang. Mine is broken.
Like all of 3%?
Online backup with Mozy, sounds like Ozzie, but more!
...don't give it to them. Quit complaining and move on.
No they don't. I'm running Linux. My web-enabled phone runs Java with embedded apps. A Blackberry runs yet another stack.
Microshaft is just smoking crack if they think they own the market. They don't even own a fraction of the total number of internet-enabled devices, but keep pushing their broken implementations as "standards" without giving so much as a nod to the real standards of internet and distributed computing technology.
CORBA? Where is their implementation?
W3C? Broken.
Media formats? Broken unless you install add-on CODECs.
POSIX APIs? Broken. Nor is there the basic compliance of a POSIX shell.
Microsoft if crap if there has ever been a dung-heap in this world.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
Yes but unfortunately for Walmart I suspect it is the geeks that will be the first addopters of these types of services. So while to the techno-geeks are a small part of the global market they are probably a huge part of the addopter market for the Walmart's service. I suspect that Walmart's video services will end up just as successfull as DVD service.
BTW: Those managers' concerns must have been acted on quickly - their music/video site works fine for me w/ FF2.
damaged by dogma
Except that every computer has IE installed.
Really? I've never owned any computer with IE installed.
Game Over, Microsoft
why the hell does anyone posting on slashdot need anything from walmart in the form of entertainment?
walmart is doing you all a favor by blocking you, since you are too stupid to avoid them on your own.
the headline should read "Walmart only sells tunes to morons" which is equivilent to saying "Walmart only sells tunes to IE users"
In terms of market share, Internet Explorer > Firefox > Opera. Opera gets the shaft because it is the least-used Windows platform browser.
Reinvent the wheel only at either a lower cost, greater effectiveness, or your own personal enrichment and satisfaction.
Looks like the cutting-edge population of Slashdot likes to complain about anything.
For starters, I venture to say they are not using home-brew software for this but using a lousy third-party product because their IS division is in such a sorry state I don't think they have the people/skills to pull it off (and I do work for the fuckers).
Second, whenever a company does something "bad", puth your mind where your mouth is and apply Capitalism and Democracy by NOT BUYING/USING THE DAMN PRODUCT. No body is forcing you!
Third, do your homework to gather data and EXPLAIN in reasonable terms to them why it is a bad decision to exclude this or that OS or browser. Don't be upset if you discover that Firefox is STILL a minority.
1. Wal-Mart fears they will lose customers to Apple.
2. Wal-Mart launches internet distribution.
3. Wal-Mart removes Safari and Firefox support, thus ensuring they WILL lose customers to Apple.
4. PROFIT! err... Oh, snap!
I believe in the new EULA for vista it gives a big no-no for virtualization. Now what
Not this one.
They bought their PC from Wal-Mart and won't be able to "upgrade" to IE6 or above for this Wal-Mart video site.
How interesting.
Nothing here in Lynx.
Mind you, the video plug-in for lynx sucks anyway.
Professor Karmadillo Songs of Science
Oh dear ... that's priceless. Wonder how long until a user of one of THOSE PCs calls up?
I'd have modded you up but I'm skint :)
Not for Mac OS X, at least. IE 5.1 is (IIRC) the last version for PowerPC-based Macs (don't know if it runs on Classic or if it needs Mac OS 8 or 9 running on the metal), and IE 4.something (4.01?) is the last version for 68K Macs.
20 January 2017: the End of an Error.
this Linux box.
The amusing part about this is that Walmart is also locking out its customers that bought Linux boxes from them online last year.
As for their locking out non-MS customers, if they don't want our business, there are plenty of other places that sell music, without concern about the kind of censorship that their in-store entertainment products come with.
In any case, they aren't the only major corporation whose website coders put out the kind of crap "IE-only" code that makes their site either useless or a pain in the ass for people who care about security.
If a company tells my browser that they don't want my business, I'll go to a competitor that does.
Tech Public Policy stuff
it's 15% Firefox, sure, but there is also 5% Safari, and another 1% that's Opera, Konquerer, and 'other', so they have lost 21% of the market right up front. Might not have been a good choice.
Everybody knows 3 people with my name.
...Like all of 3%......
Yes, but with the prices of Macs, that 3% has about 30% of disposable income and it is therefore an unwise business decision to shut them out of the cash register.
All theory is gray
... can change it's identity, and works fine. (heh)
Got the user agent switcher plugin. Even though I'm running Ubuntu with FF2.0 I lie and tell mallmart that I'm running ie6 on windwosXP. Get in just fine. It runs just fine.
Typical lazy programming. If the ID-10-T's designing this sight had done any studying at all since about 2000 they would know you don't need to build browser specific sites if you bother to code to standards. Even IE will work.
I'm sorry, I'm to tired to be witty at the moment so this message will have to do.
No, every computer does not have IE installed. Only all the ones shipped with Windows already installed. I build some of my computers and put Linux on them. Lots of people use Mac computers that run OS/X.
Not everyone wants to live in a world run by Microsoft. It's surprising that often the people who claim that the free market justifies anything a company does, refuse to understand that it's NOT a free market if there are no competitors, or if the competition is so badly hamstrung that they can't really compete fairly.
-All that is gold does not glitter - Tolkien
www.ra
isn't it depressing? We had the big blizzards in the Denver area this year, and it was the only place I could get to easily. And I was under the time crunch issues. I bought stuff on line, and later found out my pinhead nephews ask for the stuff I got for Xmas, and then went out and got it themselves. I claim extenuating circumstances
Walmart gives capitalizm a bad name.
I take no responsibility for what I say. Even though I'm never wrong
I figured the only reason a story about this should be posted it is to encourage people not to support a business that makes retarded business decisions. I just hope that is actually what happens. Don't monetarily support retarded companies! There are plenty of other reasons not to support Wal*Mart, but this is a good one too.
Otherwise, you just get a snarky message.
Thanks for the effort, WalMart, but you might be a bit off-base on this.
.. paranoid crackpot leftover from the days of Amiga.
Opera - Best browser in the world as we all know. (Tag lines should be at the top too I decided)
--
It 98% works in Opera when spoofing as IE.
WTF? How come the "downloads" cost more than an actual DVD? It's seems liked it should be the otherway around you know, like you should have to pay a "premium" price to have someone burn it to a disc for you and package it and everything. I hate this crap.
God I'm glad I'm not a computer noob and know how to rip a movie that I "already bought" to play on my portable or to store on my computer.
Now does anyone have an issue with people who are blind or visually impaired suing Target.com? At least you can still shop and buy stuff at Wal-mart.com with Firefox. Before the lawsuit was filed against Target.com, a screen reader user could not register with Target because he was forced to click a button with his mouse and thus could not buy from Target.com. After the lawsuit was filed two lines of code corrected this problem. Obviously, Those two lines of code were too expensive for Target. I wonder how many lines of code would need to be added to correct Wal-Mart for those poor pathetic living off the government whiners who use Firefox. Personally I think those Firefox users should just get in their car - government supported transportation option and drive down to Wal-Mart and buy what they need just like people who are blind. Yes, I support Microsoft because they support accessiblity.
It's your choice whether to buy from Walmart (or any other store), but please don't make us listen to your whining about it. If you want to use a mac or some other browser...fine, no one makes you shop at walmart.
The mac fanbois aren't shopping at walmart anyway so why does it bother you? Has someone stepped on your karma? You can always go buy overpriced shiny white tools at a oh so cool apple store and then drink our $5 cup of joe at a equaly trendy star$$$.
Stop whining, you wouldn't shop at walmart anyway.
Looks like Wa-Mu is attempting a ploy to Wa-Mu-Fu_ck-If-I-cation what they don't like.
Then again, trying to snif browers and re-direct to multiple brower-specific web pages to
end-run the broken IE7 code base, but being broken means tha Wa-Mu engineers can
snif bank account passwords from unsuspecting users of IE7, and then make a charge to
the bank accounts "brother can you spare a nickel?" ploy, that Wa-Mu will meet Wall
Street Analysists expectations in the 2 qt 07, and get a "Buy" from Smith Barney - "they
don't make money the old fashion way, they steal it!."
I am not Faulkner!
Toodles.
What is wrong with you?
I've read some really stupid arguments on Slashdot, but this one *has* to take the cookie.
Do you think MSIE doesn't run under Linux or MacOS? Do you think everyone using Windows has MSIE (hint: MSIE's share is currently under 50%)? Do you think people don't download something from one system (ex., at work) and then play that file on a different system (ex., at home)?
Most of whom will be buying their online music from Apple. What I find curious about this is that Walmart still sells computer with Linspire. They're actually denying access to customers who have bought their computer from Walmart!
I can view the site perfectly fine in Safari, all I have to do is change the user-agent to MSIE6 under the debug menu. Reload and it doesn't fuss. The only problem I see with this browser lock-out is that it doesn't actually tell you WHY they're locking you out. If it explained that the content they sell only works on WMP10 because it's tied to the DRM in it, so there's no point viewing the site 'cuz you can't view the content on a mac anyway, then there wouldn't be such a fuss. They should still provide a click-through though so users can see what they're not missing out on.
So if you're on a Mac and (god knows why) wanted to download music from Walmart, you're fscked.
Or something similar? Is there any legitimate reason to block out IE specifically besides disdain for Microsoft?
apples iTunes service only works with iTunes, i tried it in firefox and it shuned me away.. like i care either way, but Yahoos video service also doesn't work in firefox, but i'm a paying customer, so therefore i care that i can't access videos/music in prefered browser so it's a problem for me.. walmarts deal is just another single-minded trade with pratically every company in existant. what i dont get is that youtube (before google bought) worked just fine all browser i've tried.. and that was when they were just a small part of the net, a small company that worked... what the fuck is up with these big names, apple, yahoo, walmart, aol??
That's assuming they know that they can/how to copy and paste. /"teaches" a couple of old ladies how to use their PC
Yeah, I to wanna wish them a big good luck with their service, they will need it...
Here's a copy of a letter I wrote to Wal-Mart through their email us page on their website.
. gsp?cu_heading=8
http://www.walmart.com/cservice/cu_commentsonline
Subject: 7. Report Site Problem
Dear Walmart,
I wanted to let you know that your new video downloads service appears to be broken, as it requires me to install spyware to continue. I hope you fix this problem soon, I would love to be able to try your new service. Thanks!
... and the most likely reason for this is not the developer, not an over-arching "we hate lunix lusers" attitude, it's the California boys over at .com and some asshat manager of theirs that couldn't be bothered with taking the time to make an interoperable page. Ask someone who knows - .com and the rest of WM IT are completely different entities.
Even so, internally we Firefox users (who can barely get away with running it without getting canned) have to be extremely careful about what intranet sites we hit with FF - they've got the same checks everywhere. Most have given up and use IE as an 'internal' browser and Firefox as their 'external' one. This is primarily because the masses of programmers we employ can't tell their keyboard from their assholes and get just about as much done fingering either. Out of the 2000+ plus people that work in the IT division, you have fewer than 30 deeply technical people that actually have a clue.
Isn't Flash player that plugin that makes the little bar come out of the top of IE to tell you about security problems? I didn't know it did anything different.
But seriously the sooner people get off Flash the better - C'mon, even HTML support is still dodgy, and never mind the fact that we're still trying to use it as a container for things it was never designed for.
The internet sucks arse and needs a complete redesign from a technical standpoint. Just boycott the sites that want to use local native code in order to play a stupid animation and then we might see some progress.
It's OK Bender, there's no such thing as 2.
But many of us have store-bought Macs without Windows.
qz
I have IE 5.2.3 on my PPC Mac. Didn't work anyway. It allowed me to see the page but not put anything in my shopping cart.
qz
It sounds like Wally-world doesnt want my money. Thats okIm happy with my opensource music. ; ) Silly Control freaks.
Wal Mart's; the providers of Wal Mart's music; or mine?
I can get all the music Wal Mart has from many sources. Wal Mart can get my money only from me.
Ok, I'm pissed off at Wal-mart now. Damn those monopolistic f*cks. The thing is, it's *obvious* that they're explicitly not supporting other browsers so they can get the lock-in, not for any other reason. We need a big Don't-Download-From-Wal-Mart campaign.
Furry cows moo and decompress.
>..but with the prices of Macs, that 3% has about 30% of disposable income...
i sense a new "i'm a mac, i'm a pc" on its way
May contain traces of nut.
Made from the freshest electrons.
"This is one of those things where the market will correct itself. "
And Slashdot is, in fact, part of the market -- warning computer users to stay away from Walmart and educating the public on the incompetence of various online music sellers. So if you're saying the market will correct itself and people shouldn't complain, you're wrong; our complaints are part of that very system.
He who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me.
Do you have any links to such research?
Thank you in advance.
hany
To build upon what you wrote:
By buying at a BIG store you get very good price (for now, in most cases). But you also give them a lot of control. Because your need for low prices may end-up with all the local shops go bancrupt and you being unable to buy anywhere alse but at BIG store. And if that happens, how big discount you expect to be getting? You can't go anywhere else, why should you get any? It would be much better (for BIG store) to even charge premium.
To give some example so we can imagine such situation better: price of Microsoft Windows Vista, price of gas, price od CDs, ...
Freedom costs. And discounts are not given for doing nothing. :)
hany
Unsupported Browser Warning. We have detected that the browser you are using is not able to view some of the more advanced elements of our >website, and may prevent you from completing your booking.
To view supported and tested configurations, pleaseclick here
I wrote to them to complain, saying that there is no reason why they can't make a web site that works with any modern browser. They wrote back to me and "helpfully" suggested this as a solution to "MY" problem:
We have been made aware that some of our customers encounter at times difficulties in using their MAC computer when trying to use the Air Canada Web Site. Even though we are working to improve our web site, these following quick steps have proven to be quite useful for most of our clients to enable debug functionality on Mac. To enable this functionality :
(1) Go to and download OnyX
(2). Open OnyX and select the "APPEARANCE" tab and then select the "Misc." tab, far right
(3) Enable the "Safari Debug menu" option.
(4) Quit OnyX and then open Safari.
(5)You will now see a "Debug" menu on the far right-navigate down to "User Agent" on this menu and select "Windows MSIE 6.0"
(6) Safari is now behaving like Windows IE version 6.
So the "solution" is to pretend that I am using Explorer to make the warning go away. If anyone thinks that this is a viable solution then perhaps 'faking' Explorer will work for Walmart as well.
Is there any site out there that we can direct companies like Walmart or Air Canada to to explain why they should make a standards compliant web site?
Netflix's new "Watch Now" feature only works on IE 6 and above.
First post! (just in case I am...)
Mainstreet USA will help shovel every last manufacturing job to China (or Bangladesh, or India, or...) out of an obsession over low prices. Q-tips could cost a dime more but keep jobs in the USA, and American shoppers would still shop at Wal-Mart to save that dime, jobs be damned. Just as the Republican Party has co-opted Evangelical Christianity, Wal-Mart has co-opted flag-waving American consumerism, and each are now synonymous with something that they really have very little, if anything, in common with. But for low prices, grandmas in American would gladly harvest your kidneys, and if they simultaneously killed the very last American manufacturing job and doomed the entire non-suit-wearing population to minimum wage, they wouldn't care one bit. They'd just keep watching O'Reilly and listening to Paul Harvey, and any criticism of their actions would be brushed aside. Your pessimism is not nearly bleak enough. I hope I helped.
Put on your tin foil hats. This is sensationalism. It even says in the article:
We all know the music industry is going to require DRM. And there are 2 main ones out there right now. Apple's and Microsoft's. Apple refuses to license FairPlay to anyone. What does that leave? Microsoft. But, yea, WalMart is in bed with MIcrosoft.....
Just remember - if the world didn't suck, we would all fall off.
As long as you don't wear an Amulet of Unchanging.
'Course if you're going for that foodless conduct ascension, I'd recommend NORTH Korea.
-AB+
Thats funny, MY Mac (iBook G4) came with IE pre-installed (as well as Safari, of course). Usually I use Safari, but ocassionally have to break out IE for stubborn web sites that insist on it.
As of OS 10.4 it is no longer part of the default OS X install, but it was there up to an including Panther (10.3). I don't know why it was removed (either it broke on the later OS, or Microsoft had its own reasons for discontinuing it) but it didn't put anyone out. Either way, it was Internet Explorer in name alone and as it wasn't using Trident or operating with a Windows system, the code base was probably irresovably different from the Windows version and all of the 'features' later available on that platform.
I don't know about the situation for Linux, but for Mac OS Internet Explorer 6.x or higher doesn't even exist. It's odd for a "techno-geeek" to be as Microsoft-centric as WalMart is.
Of course it's not extortion... but I wonder... Do you wander over to Bob's Computer Shack when you need to upgrade to the latest ATI BFG9900-OMG graphics card or do you just go to NewEgg (or online vendor of choice) because they offer lower prices and a better selection? I would argue that a purchase from a local Walmart does more for the local economy than one from an online vendor. Are computer and technology purchases exempt from local responsibility? Or just ones that you are interested in making?
Most of the time it is hidden. That is why when you buy a 300Gb hard drive it only shows up as 285.
I would say that this is usually true, but this is Wal-Mart. Geeks (myself very much included) aren't touching this one anyway. And when you look at it from that point of view, this decision almost makes sense. They're aiming at the lowest common denominator, because they're Wal-Mart and that's their demographic. And those people use IE.
Hey, I finally got my first freak! Took you long enough!
Does the music downloaded from Walmart have DRM? If so, maybe they figure the kind of people using browsers other than IE aren't the kind of people who would buy the music anyway. The Linux crowd mostly won't be, and the mac crowd is probably buying from iTunes anyway, if they wanted DRM'ed music.
Still, music downloads is a hard business to break in to. You'd think they want every advantage they could get. Is it really just lazy coding, or are they using some sort of activex or something (which I guess just goes right back to lazy coding).
IE did make it to OS X as a Carbon app. It had some issues that never got fixed before it was dropped, which was just after Safari was announced. There was even an IE 6 in development, but that code only ended up getting used within MSN for Mac OS X.
End of Line.
It is my personal policy to NOT do business with any company that enforces any kind of vendor lock-in. If they do not accept a platform independent browser I cannot be a customer.
:)
So, Walmart will not be selling any entertainment media to me
What about Lynx? Walmart needs to think about all of us on 3270 emulators surfing the net for music and movies by text alone. Isn't there the "Americans with Command Line" act which prevents this type of discrimination. I also can't access it from the networked file system of my Atari 2600.
One ring to bind them - should probably have more fiber and less rings in their diet.
Congratulations. Your post is the ONLY result for the query "flame squirrel" browser. Golf clap.
Global warming is neither science, nor politics. It is a religion.
If I set Safari's User Agent to MSIE 6, everything seems to work fine except for a "plugin not found" error in the header logo. I can even preview the few movies that actually have previews (looks like they're useing flash). The site does seem fairly nice (functionality only), with lots of dom manipulation instead of going to a whole new page and so on, but there's nothing I saw that can't be done with prototype.js (which is cross browser).
I wasn't able to test how far into the order system I can get, since I get a "not available outside the US" popup.
Screenshot: http://aadesign.ausdatahost.com/misc-files/walmart -safari.jpg
"This is Walmart's competitor to the iTunes Store. And Mac users are not welcome."
Huh? That doesn't make any sense at all.
Wouldn't that be exactly how NOT to beat your competitor? Refuse all of their customers? Hows that supposed to work?
We're sorry, your operating system is incompatible. To provide the best download experience, we can no longer support Windows 98, ME or NT. Please visit again after you upgrade to Windows 2000 or XP. Visit our Help section for complete system requirements information.
My point exactly. It seems like Walmart is targeting Windows users who are willing to buy music online, but have not heard of iPods and iTunes. A very small market for Walmart's tastes. It seems like there has to be something more to this than just a silly "mee too" effort.
Seems like they're doing a self-inflicted denial of service.
Anyhow this isn't any more brilliant than stores that use TeleCheck (dunno if Wallmart is amongst them) to validate checks, and end up refusing money from a perfectly valid account. (ATM's and Banks don't have a problem seeing money in it.) Thus the cashier gets stuck with a full shopping cart to return, and the store ends up losing a p'o'ed customer to some other business that doesn't resort to using a retarded external financial service.
So if you're a Mac user and you (for some reason) wanted to use Walmart's music store, you're fscked.
Internet Explorer used to be the default broswer on Mac OS X. Microsoft stopped updating it after Safari came out. It works fine for many sites, although it is a few years out of date. It's also not the most bug-free of browsers. But it exists, anyway.
Contact ./ and ask for that feature.
You may even count me as a supporter of such feature - I may not see use of it for myself but I can certainly see that someone else may like it very much.
hany
Any kind of web insanity is likely to come from the people who, according to Netcraft, manage to run IIS on Solaris.
I guess I should have read the entire comment before posting.
Walmart web site works with Firefox
Regards
John