What is a Good Response to "Best Viewed in x"?

Question

Is there a good response to the statement "Best viewed in x"?

Specifically, I was trying to access a site and the site was horribly broken on Webkit browsers. I sent an email to the webmaster including screenshots. The webmaster responded to me that the site "is best viewed in Internet Explorer."

Now there are some other issues with this site even if you view it in IE, for instance the site is part of a public university, and as such they are not following either the university's guidelines or accessiable for disabled persons.

Is there a best response to this sort of statement? I am not looking to strike them down, or call the webdevelopers bad at their job, rather that they should know this isn't an acceptable response.

Please note I am not trying to start a discussion over the benefits of one technology over the other, but specifically with regards to the internet, shouldn't I be able to view a site in any of the major browsers (IE, FF, Safari, Chrome, Opera, etc).

Answer 1

You are losing 33% of your viewing audience simply because you have not taken the time to ensure your site is compatible with more browsers. (browser statistics) A policy of "best viewed on IE" tells a third of your customers they are not wanted here. Please reconsider whether or not this is the way you wish to do business.

Cheers!

Answer 2

The best general-purpose response to service provider intransigence is taking your patronage elsewhere.

In this particular case, if a university's services are out of keeping with its own policies, it may be appropriate to bring that to the attention of people concerned with that sort of thing at the university.

Answer 3

I guess this is somehow a "subjective" post. Well of course you should be able to view a site in any of the major browsers. Actually, "good sites" will work in any of the browsers without major problems.

As a web developer I can just tell you what a nightmare it can be to make this work. This is often part of my everyday fight at work. The problem is that browsers do not always follow the common standards regarding CSS, JavaScript etc...or add their own interpretation. Unfortunately for instance IE makes the most problems by having a highly own interpretation of some CSS styles and JavaScript stuff. Often designing things just for FF and the Webkit family would be much easier. But as it is, most dummy users use Windows and IE wherefore you're forced to support it at your best.

Answer 4

What do you want to reach?

convince the webmaster? Try sending him some stats on browser statistics, or some stories about the effect of usability improvements.

have a firefox/safari/opera/ whatever enabled version of the site? Forward the email discussion with the webmaster to his boss and apply for the job.

get a some mean fun out of it? Post the story with names and everything on a forum, where people will make fun of the webmaster and let the webmaster know about it. (note: this might be illegal and possibly even dangerous)

enjoy you life? Move on.

Answer 5

Tell them that their site is broken for a large number of people who use other browsers, some of whom don't have access to Internet Explorer.

Answer 6

I'd take him to the Viewable with any browser campaign and give him a heads up on his ignorance.

"Anyone who slaps a 'this page is best viewed with Browser X' label on a Web page appears to be yearning for the bad old days, before the Web, when you had very little chance of reading a document written on another computer, another word processor, or another network." - Tim Berners-Lee

Answer 7

You can start by checking how many errors W3C validator shows for that web site, and sending the link to the WebMasters. It is not easy to argue with the W3C authority.

Answer 8

I have tried at a few occasion to write more or less lengthy mails to webmasters of larger web sites explaining the shortcomings of the sites, and all the answers have at best been of the form "I am sorry you don't find our site to be fulfilling your wishes " and then explaining why they have decided to do what they did, in a way that indicates that they are not contemplating doing it differently.

With that background, my response these days is to simply stop using the web site in question. But should I bother to send a mail to the web master, and get the reply "The pages are best viewed in X", I guess my reply back would be this:

No, the page is best viewed in the browser of my choice. And in this case, "best" is simply not good enough.