DO Not USE: Chrome, Firefox and Edge | Hacker News Reader

DO Not USE: Chrome, Firefox and Edge

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42 pointsanorborg14 comments

Here's one that's even dumber. When I log in to Bill.com on my main workstation (Ubuntu, using Firefox), it sniffs my OS and gives me a big warning that Ubuntu is not a supported operating system.

Supported operating system. For their WEB APPLICATION.

I could understand pitching a fit about what browser I'm using, but operating system? Seriously?

The punchline, of course, is that once I click past the error, everything in the app works fine, because OF COURSE IT DOES, IT'S A WEB APPLICATION AND I'M USING A MODERN BROWSER.

Sigh.

I'm sure this is causing some people on HN real, excruciating pain. However, this application was built according to the standards of its day, and I don't know that it's so unreasonable to expect them to hire at 6 figures a developer for no "real" benefit.

And, the "IE" of today could be the "Chrome" of tomorrow. I don't like this situation (does anyone?). I wonder if for CRUD apps like this, it'd be beneficial to have a limited subset stack guaranteed for long term ABI compatibility, similar to CoreOS for binary runtime environments?*

* of course, this is just one of those many "wouldnt it be nice to have" things.

If the "application" (a web site) were built according to standards it wouldn't matter what browser we used to access it.

I have built websites when 6 was the latest IE version and can assure you, that this website was not built according to the standards of its days

It was not build suing standard that's the reason its not compatible with today browsers

Sad of course, and something you will see a lot of. Some company hires out the development of its web presence to a contractor. The web moves on but the web site still works if you match up the tech with it that was current at the time it was developed. So rather than pay another contractor to update your already "working" web site the bean counters say "Just put up a message telling people what they have to do to make it work."

I'm pretty sure I had to use this site to get my DUNS number a few years ago, and I know I didn't use any version of I.E. So just because the warning is there, doesn't mean to have to take it seriously.

Followed by

"please enable ActiveX Control" and

"you need Flash Player 12 or higher to view this content"

Don't forget "And Adobe Acrobat ...", which the VA is dealing with and over 50% of applicants think they need a newer computer to fix the issue.

Best viewed at 800x600

"We use only Internet Explorer 9... for security reasons."

Translation: We hired a consultant to write this thing 5 years ago, haven't touched it since, and now we can't find the guy so we can update it.

Does it require a java applet?

Funnily enough, a public internet service (phone relay for Deaf people) in my country is a Java applet.

It hasn't worked since September 2015, when Mozilla/Google stopped supporting Java in the browser.

I've been trying to get in touch with the vendor to see when they will come up with a HTML5 solution, but nobody will talk to me about it. Disgusting behaviour.

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