IE Chauvinism

Paul Murphy asks what the costs of IE/Windows chauvinism are. For me, that’s quite simple – any organisation that is so braindead that it only supports IE and/or Windows clients loses my business. Can’t buy airline tickets on your site with Firefox on GNU/Linux? I’ll go elsewhere.

Fortunately, things have improved quite a bit lately. It’s now pretty rare to come across a site that does not work (well) with Firefox. But they exist. Interestingly enough I find them more often where the organisation at fault is in a (more or less) monopoly position. The LSAC site is an example – they require a Windows-based browser (Firefox does work, actually) to fill out the law school application forms on their site. Ridiculous.

I even tend to go further. If I have the choice between two online retailers, and one of them is an obvious 100% Microsoft shop, I’ll buy from the other one.