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."

Comments

WTF?

[DeeZee]

And the internets was all like "double-you tee eff, mate?"

Re:WTF?

[Fyre2012]

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

I'm using OS X and FF on my MacBook Pro, and apparently I need to upgrade to XP.
For my next trick, I'm going to grow gills. Take THAT progress!

Of course they wouldn't use Firefox or Safari

[Ridayah]

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.

Re:Of course they wouldn't use Firefox or Safari

[suv4x4]

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.

This would be funny, if it wasn't true. This was coming 1:1 from the mouth of one of my big clients (and otherwise a smart fella), just 10 months ago.

I would explain in a long tirade how Firefox is picking up and so on and so on. He'd just say "Nah, don't spend a second testing in Firefox, they'll have to use a REAL browser /IE/.".

Of course, I was secretly testing in other browsers for the hell of it, since I'm your typical thickheaded geek.

A month ago, the same client comes back crying that something broke the feature in the new Firefox 2.0. The irony.

(Also, turned out the issue was from a tweak HE made, after reverting it was ok.)

Re:Of course they wouldn't use Firefox or Safari

[mdrebelx]

In any event, should we really care about not being [able] to shop online at Wal-Mart? Check out a report like Fishman's The Wal-Mart Effect (New York: Penguin, 2006) and you'll be convinced to take your business anywhere but there.

I have not shopped Wal-Mart for years. I started getting a bad taste for them with the whole music censorship that was really brought to light when they banned Sheryl Crow for daring to have a lyric about Wal-Mart and refusing to change it. There is a whole litany of reasons to see Wal-Mart as an "Evil Empire": the censorship, the employee practices, the bullying and bankrupting of suppliers, the complete annihilation of small-businesses in small-towns, the indirect forcing of jobs out of the U.S. while still draping themselves in the American flag. Even the store's logo and themes are red, white, and blue while their practices are quite un-American.

In a way it makes perfect sense that Wal-Mart would be in bed with Microsoft. Both companies have a storied history of questionable business practices and ethics. Both companies devour the competition, offer you some watered-down compromise, and tell you how great it is. Both companies seek total domination and are getting more desperate as they see their dominance starting to erode. Really, this shouldn't be much of a surprise.

Re:Of course they wouldn't use Firefox or Safari

[prichardson]

I see you got modded informative, so presumably someone understood you. I can not grasp what you mean to save my life. What do you mean?

Where does your quotation end? Whom would you CC the email to? When do you offer them this discount? If you're discounting your services almost exactly as much is you charge, how is this supposed to increase profits? For which request is the grandparent supposed to charge this mystery amount of money?

Clarity: it's not just for breakfast anymore.

User-Agent

[apathy maybe]

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.

It's their business.

[onion2k]

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).

Don't worry

[wirefarm]

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.)

even if we cannot access it

[SilentGhost]

we can always /. it

Misspelled DRM...

[fahrbot-bot]

We're sorry, your operating system is incompatible. To provide the best download experience, we can no longer support Windows 98, ME or NT.

They misspelled "DRM protection".

Re:This is Microshaft... pure and simple.

[IL-CSIXTY4]

Except that every computer has IE installed.

Not this one.