By Ingrid Marson, 25 August 2005 15:25
NEWS The Department for Work & Pensions (DWP) has pledged to make its websites compatible with as many browsers as possible, including the popular open source browser Firefox.
Carl Mawson, the head of e-communications at the DWP, said on Wednesday that "we are very much aware of the widening range of browsers used by our customers, such as Firefox and Opera. We aim to address this, so that our websites work in as many browsers, and on as many platforms as possible."
At present, the job search feature on the Jobcentreplus website does not work in the Firefox browser as the lists of job groups, types and titles are not populated when the search page is opened.
Mawson said the DWP aims to fix this feature in the second half of this year.
"The Jobcentre Plus website itself does work using non-IE browsers such as Firefox. However, the job vacancy search element does not. It is however being redesigned to be compatible with non-IE browsers and we aim to deliver this towards the end of the year. This is as part of our ongoing commitment to developing widely accessible web content, and also in response to customer comments," he said.
The DWP is not the only organisation that is keen to add Firefox support. Software company Autodesk said on Thursday that it is working on Firefox support for MapGuide, a product that allows companies to distribute GIS applications on the web. An Autodesk spokesman said: "We consider Firefox support to be essential and are working on it for the next version of MapGuide."
It is uncertain whether Autodesk plans to add Firefox support to other products.
Firefox's market share has significantly increased over the last year, with web analytics firm OneStat.com claiming the open source browser has increased from 2.1 per cent in May 2004 to 8.7 per cent in April 2005. Firefox appears to have grabbed even more market share in Europe, with 30 per cent, 24 per cent and 22 per cent of web surfers using the open source browser in Finland, Germany and Hungary respectively.
Most of this increase in market share has been at the expense of Microsoft's Internet Explorer, although one report earlier this month found that IE had clawed back some market share.
There are a number of other organisations that have recently updated their website to make sure it works with Firefox. Since May, the website of electrical retailer Powerhouse no longer excludes Firefox users and since June the website of English Heritage no longer forces Firefox users to use a non-graphical version of the site, according to website testing company SciVisum.
But some companies still seem reluctant to update their websites to make sure they work on Firefox. The website of cinema chain Odeon does not allow Firefox users to access the main part of the site, preventing users from booking cinema tickets.
An Odeon spokeswoman said: "The Odeon website can be viewed by Firefox users by clicking on the 'text version' option on the home page. This includes all necessary information, including film times and booking."
The spokeswoman was unable to comment on whether it had any plans to make the site compatible with Firefox.
Ingrid Marson writes for ZDNet UK
Comments
There are 8 comments. Join the discussion
1. Adam
Why are we still reading about web-sites being made 'compatible' with browsers?
Whatever happened to compliance with web standards? To my mind there is NO valid excuse for ANYONE to create a web-site which "doesn't work" on a particular browser. Microsoft, you broke the web.
I'm in pretty good company here; the W3C and Tim Berners-Lee feel the same way...
2. Graham Coles
If a highstreet shop shoved everyone not wearing a blue shirt into a back storeroom and told them that they can't be allowed in the main shopping area what would you do.
If Odeon want to treat people using web browsers the same way, they should suffer the same fate. Boycott the cinema and order your tickets from one whose website has been built by competent web designers.
Still, not to worry, microsoft are releasing a new version of their browser after several years development. Pity that reports suggest it is still struggling to cope with HTML4, CSS and PNG images. Perhaps the challenge was too innovative for them?
3. Malcolm Ripley
I agree with Adam but would also add that in my opinion the culprit here is Microsoft. It's their arrogant way of introducing non standard features into their software that everyone else has to adopt or risk being isolated from the majority of computer users.
We can't blame the users since most don't even understand why computers are different. We could blame some of the web developers but I suspect a lot of these are simply smarter users that have learnt how to use a Microsoft web builder!
No the source of the problem is Microsoft software not being W3C compliant. It also does not help when the bugs in their web builder are accomodated by their own web browser and vice versa (Jesus !).
4. David Fletcher
There is an old saying about not being able to force a horse to dring the water.
Unfortunately web site authors have been all too eager to drink the web poison offered by Microsoft.
I sincerely hope that attitudes are now changing.
5. Lionel A Smith
I agree Adam. One problem seems to be that those with Windows XP must use IE to collect security updates from MS. Firefox cannot do this.
'Why should MS make their update processes compatible with something that is competing with them', some would argue.
Fine, but if MS do not then this will be another incentive to migrate to OSS.
6. Ian Savell
Reusable code is the problem. For years the industry has chased the dream of reusing code from one project on subsequent ones. Libraries of web widgets are freely available or built into development tools. But as standards develop old code stops working.
Most non-Firefox sites fail because they use a javascript construct designed to differentiate between IE4 and Netscape, data models that predate the W3C standard that Firefox uses.
Until these old widgets and code libraries are deleted or updated people will continue to produce non-compliant websites, and probably blame the problems on Firefox.
The fault doesn't lie with Microsoft, they produced a browser with the functionality the market required before standards were fixed. The standards simply didn't develop their way. Netscape's proprietary model wasn'tadopted either. At least MS updated their browser to comply with the standard, but of course they wouldn't wantonly break all the old sites that had been built in good faith to the old models.
7. Alex
You could argue that if you have 90% of the market share then your product is the standard to which others should match.
As a developer why should I try to develop to a fantasy standard which no one has fully complied with. I live in the real world and I develop to the market leader.
8. anonymous
What about the National Lottery site?