Why are Websites Still Forcing People to Use IE?

DragonTHC asks: "I just visited Movielink's website for research. Their site has a nice message saying, 'Sorry, but in order to enjoy the Movielink service you must use Internet Explorer 5.0 (or higher) or Mozilla/Firefox with an IE Tab Extension (IE installation required).' While allowing the IETab Firefox extension is somewhat progressive, why do companies still force people to use Internet Explorer? Surely the site should work just fine in Firefox? With Firefox's steady gains in market share, you would think that webmasters would get the hint. If you are a webmaster, what are your reasons for forcing IE?"

Forcing people to use IE?

[by Anonymous Coward]

I think you mean forcing people to use other sites.

"Allowing" IETab?

[Kelson (129150)]

As I understand it, IETab simply embeds Internet Explorer inside the Firefox window and allows the chrome to control it. As far as the website can tell, IETab is IE.

What's (somewhat) progressive about MovieLink isn't that they're allowing IETab... but that they're recommending it.

Re:"Allowing" IETab?

[LighterShadeOfBlack (1011407)]

What's (somewhat) progressive about MovieLink isn't that they're allowing IETab... but that they're recommending it.

It's not all that progressive though is it? That just means the website isn't from a time where for most people there really was no known alternative to IE. They're obviously well aware of Firefox and yet they have chosen to jam a proverbial fork in the user's eye by suggesting they change their software to fit the website. If anything that's regression in my book. They're aware of other browsers, they explicitly just don't care.

Poor programming

[Yobgod Ababua (68687)]

In those cases re-making a site/changing it for maximum browser capability doesn't make as much sense as some instructions for how FF users might get round the problem. It might be that they don't care, it might be its actually the most sensible action.

In 90% of the "IE-only" sites I've encountered, the problem is not that they would need to re-make their site but that they stuck some "browser verification" script on the front page that doesn't know anything about the capability of non-IE browsers and thus excludes them. Changing the site in these cases is as easy as removing the "you must use IE to enter" code. I usually test these cases by asking my non-IE browser to lie about what it is, and things then usually work perfectly.

What really drives me mad are sites that say you need "IE X or more recent, or Netscape 6 or more recent" but don't let Firefox or Opera in because they didn't exist when they wrote the script and no one bothers to update it, even though these "more recent" browsers would do fine.

Then don't go there

[Jupix (916634)]

They have no power over you. Just go somewhere else for your research. That's what I do when I come across a stupid website like that.

Re:Then don't go there

[Zocalo (252965)]

Exactly. This is the strongest message you can send and it's actually your easiest option thanks to Internet search engines. Any decent web logfile analysis package is capable of showing stats on the number of visitors that only visited the home page and didn't follow any links. If the site in question is using one and that figure gets high enough then they might just correlate it with browser usage and the clue train will pull into the station. If not, well, it's their lost sales, advertising revenue, warm-fuzzies though high pages hits or whatever other factor they judge the success of the site by.

User Agent Switcher (for Firefox users)

[mackil (668039)]

Just use the User Agent Switcher extension (https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/59 ) and have Firefox pretend it is IE. Nine times out of 10 the site will work just fine.

New technologies, "corporate design" and other bs

[Opportunist (166417)]

Well, however it may be, browsers still display different content differently. There is still no full consensus over how certain things should be displayed.

Now, of course, everyone has to use the latest technology in webpage design. In other words, the most incompatible technology. What looks lovely in IE looks aweful in Firefox and even worse in Opera. Ok, ok, maybe not aweful. But not JUST the same way. So you'd have to do the page two or three times to make it compatible with every browser. But that, in turn, would cost more money.

And here's where corporate design comes into play. It HAS to look exactly the way intended. The colors have to be JUST right, the placement, the spacing, everything has to match so it is immediately identified as THAT page. Since this cannot be warranted, the powers that be usually decide it's the lesser evil to "force" people to use a certain browser. Since you can assume that everyone has IE (at least everyone who uses Windows), but the amount of people who'd have Firefox is way smaller, IE is usually the browser of choice.

Re:New technologies, "corporate design" and other

[lhand (30548)]

And I've had this discussion with people since the browser came out.

A browser displays a mark-up language. It was never designed to be a page layout language.
If you want that kind of control over presentation, use GIFs, PDF or Flash to do your presentations.
Of course, if you're too lazy to do all that work go ahead and assume that all IE users have their system set up exactly like you do--same screen resolution, same color depth, same fonts, no changes to default browser settings--and, by all means, use IE.

Every once in a while someone gets it but I think, as another poster mentioned, they're too lazy to bother.

Lazyness, Popularity

[MBCook (132727)]

I would guess two reasons, which are related. IE was VERY popular a few years ago. It was a relativly good browser, up to date, and thanks to Windows coming with IE by default it held a massive market share. The biggest competitors were Opera (not free) and Netscape. Even Macs had IE. If you made a website, you had to make it work in IE, and making it work in something else was a luxury, it wasn't that necessary.

I think what we are seeing is the result of that, at least in part. Web sites were designed for that and things have continued. You update your site, update your site, update your site. It's still setup for that browser. You may bother to fix it for FF and such.

Don't get me wrong, I HATE this. I especially hate sites that tell me I must use IE then work fine when I tell Safari to fake being IE. And this is becoming less of an issue as the market share of Macs goes up, and FF reaches like 20% here in the US and up to 50% in some European countries (see story from the other day).

Ignoring other browsers used to be safe. Now it can mean a big share of the market.

Also, in the (smaller) shop where I work, things MUST work on IE simply because it is such a big part of the market. That said, we all use FireFox and design for it first then go fix stuff for IE. Safari tends to work with whatever FireFox does for the most part.

PS: Installing IE tab is not a solution. Saying you are "FireFox compatible with IE tab" is like saying a paddle boat is gas compatible when you duct-tape an outboard motor on it.

Malware-dependent sites

[G4from128k (686170)]

I'm sure this is a great way to propagate malware -- force the user to use an insecure browser so that the site can install malware on the person's PC.

"This site works best (for us, not for you) with Internet Explorer"

Slashdot Webmasters Forcing IE?

[yotto (590067)]

If you are a webmaster, what are your reasons for forcing IE?

Do you honestly believe there exists a /. webmaster who would require IE?

And if such a monster exists, do you honestly believe he'd admit it?

What could be worse?

[Robber Baron (112304)]

Never mind IE, the idiots I'd like to kick the shit out of are the ones who do a website entirely in Flash!

As I was told

[chuckymonkey (1059244)]

by a tech support person, "because Linux and free software are hacker tools".

The reason why our company does is ...

[dook43 (660162)]

Firefox does not allow you to clear the Authentication cache (Basic or NTLM) unless you create a signed component. This forces us to close the browser to clear authentication data (We have kiosks where more than one user is viewing private healthcare information and this behavior is VERY undesirable)

Just to balance things out...

[Ant P. (974313)]

...I use an XHTML mime-type on all my pages.

Re:Obvious arrogance.

[ergo98 (9391)]

How about IE has functionality that your sacred cow doesn't?

Such as? What necessary piece of functionality does IE have that Mozilla (or Opera, or others) don't have?

The GP is absolutely correct most of the time: In the vast majority of cases there is no justifiable reason, and the only explanation is a lazy and/or dumb development team that couldn't be bothered to support another browser. Many of these projects were developed or began back when such a lazy choice wouldn't impede them much, but nowadays it can be deadly (if I encounter an IE-only site, I presume the operators are just grossly incompetent and go elsewhere).

Re:Obvious arrogance.

[secolactico (519805)]

Such as? What necessary piece of functionality does IE have that Mozilla (or Opera, or others) don't have?

Backdoor exploits into your OS? Ha! Try doing *that* on Firefox or Opera.

Seriously, I'm guessing that's simply an unwillingness to code for more than one browser, either because of laziness or lack of resources or they don't care about the growing market share or firefox.

I don't know if that site is good enough to make people open an IE window or tab just to visit it, so I don't know if their arrogance (if that's what it is) is justified.

Thanks for your interest in Movielink, the leading movie download service. Sorry, but Movielink is presently unavailable to users outside of the United States.

I guess I'll never know.

Re:Obvious arrogance.

[JavaRob (28971)]

Typical slshdot arrogance. How about IE has functionality that your sacred cow doesn't?

If Y% of the market uses IE and Z% uses Firefox, Opera, etc... well, as Z grows, supporting only IE gets stupider and stupider.

Certainly, it's easier to write one-platform one-browser code. I guess as long as the extra effort would cost more than you're losing in users, it makes sense...

Re:Obvious arrogance.

[gregmac (629064)]

I know! Firefox doesn't even run ActiveX controls, and those awesome search bars that give you free stuff don't even install into it!

Re:Obvious

[by Anonymous Coward]

Or they are stuck using Microsoft Visual Studio on a Microsoft Vista workstation, producing Microsoft ASP.NET applications for bosses who enjoy the occasional dinner and/or trip by... Microsoft!

Why yes, I am bitter. Why do you ask?

Re:eTRADE requires IE to access account

[by Anonymous Coward]

Huh? I opened accounts with Safari and have used their system with it for years with zero troubles.. They do have 1 problem with Firefox ( at least on OS X ) where it will log you out if you try to go to the market research tab, but certainly they are not IE only.

Re:eTRADE requires IE to access account

[woozlewuzzle (532172)]

I'm in the same boat as AC. I have company options at ETrade and we don't permit the use of IE at my company (It's good to be the king). Everything I've needed to use has worked perfectly using Firefox and I can also access everything from Safari on my Mac at home. I'd have to say your problem was:
a. your computer
b. a lousy support person who didn't want to help with something they didn't know about.

Re:Thanks so very much

[peacefinder (469349)]

"And there's nothing wrong with that. Isn't it, ultimately, about choice? Right?"

I got the impression that the article was discussing the server-side requirement for IE, not the user's voluntary browser selection. If you like IE, good on you.

But if, as you say, it's ultimately about choice, the article is pointing out how odd it is that people running websites would still design new sites demanding one particular browser.

Re:Obvious

[Blakey Rat (99501)]

Ever heard the phrase "you only have one chance to make a first impression?"

Applies to software, too.

Sure you say he should try Firefox again now that it's bumped up a version and improved. But I'm going to wager (this being Slashdot) that you're unwilling to install and try out RealPlayer again. Right?