newly launched movielink.com blocking Netscape / Mozilla

[jayeshsh]

Hello,

The newly launched Movielink website (providing online music rentals) seems to be blocking non-IE browsers.

http://www.movielink.com

If this is the case, maybe we can get a petition going (or go through Netscape Evangelism) to get them to unblock non-IE browsers.

We could make a simple business case to persuade them: why are they voluntarily giving up potential customers? The more of us who write in, the more convinced they will be.

Regards,

- Jay

PS: other major sites which block non IE browsers or provide partial services to them are: Yahoo Launch: http://launch.yahoo.com and Quickbooks Online (by Quicken).

[cdn]

better yet they don't let non-US visitors anywhere near

http://www.movielink.com/commerce/error ... lter.jhtml

[jayeshsh]

Hello,

Thanks for the note about their blocking international visitors. It seems they really do not want customers.

Oh - and I made a mistake in my original post, sorry: I meant online movie rentals, not online music rentals.

Maybe we won't need a petition at all for them: no one will go near them for a year, and they will have to reconsider their business model. When they think about why they can count the number of customers on the CEO's right hand fingers, they will probably come up with:

1)They block non-IE users for no obvious reason
2)They evict international users unceremoniously, and without explanation
3)Their prices are way too high: If I want to pay $4 to rent a movie, I will walk down two doors to the rental shop there.

I cannot believe movielink's strategists haven't figured out that their site in its current form won't work.

Maybe the explanation is that they don't have any strategists.

Regards,

- Jay
PS: Sorry if this message is veering off topic
PPS: I still feel like getting together a band of Mozilla / Netscape users who will collectively and politely tell them: "Ignore us at the risk of your own bottom line vanishing" , for that's the only language they would understand.

[RevNomad]

now these people have confirmed it: Nebraska is not part of the US.
Can I stop paying taxes now?
RevNomad

[redvine]

Here's the URL for Movielinks comment form (works fine in Mozilla, by the way):

<a href="http://4.42.225.135/kbase.asp?articleid=8"> http://4.42.225.135/kbase.asp?articleid=8 </a>

I wrote them a comment suggesting that requiring IE5 or IE6 was unneccesary and exclusionary (I'm sure the exclusion of Internationals is based on some primitive Intellectual Property instinct inherited from the MPAA and will require greater effort to overcome than getting Mozilla accepted).

[ChuckRoast]

It's Windows only, too, according to the minimum requirements:

"You need Windows 98, ME, 2000, XP"

[Rashid Muhammad]

Hi,

Making me use IE is not an upgrade, it's a downgrade. Is there any support for Netscape / Mozilla planned for the future? I would love to try your service but I will not be strong armed into using IE to do so.

Thanks,
Rashid Muhammad
A potential customer.

[scratch]

PS: other major sites which block non IE browsers or provide partial services to them are: Yahoo Launch: http://launch.yahoo.com and Quickbooks Online (by Quicken).

Launch is a joke. I emailed them about it, and I got a form reply: "Upgrading to the latest version of your browser should fix your problem. Please download Netscape 4.79." or something along those lines.

[Gunnar]

The problem is that many of those sites use Windows Media. I have heard of had a similar project from a friend who was working on it. The site does not block Mozilla, it just looks like crap and is not useable. The problem is that many "consultants" and "programmers" believe there is no Windows Media Player plugin for Mozilla, or they don't know how to make it work. Well, there is, MS just did a very poor job.

Blocking Mozilla is a convenient way for them to hide their inability to do a good job. Technically, there is no reason whatsoever to block Mozilla. For the aforementioned project , one of their student temps redid the site in his spare time (didn't take much work) and made it work in all Browsers (Netscape 4, IE, Mozilla, Opera,...). Of course, noone seemed to care since they had paid "consultants" a lot of $$$ to do the site and the student temp did a better job at what would have cost roughly $150 (hours of work x hourly pay). Try to explain that to your boss The result - nothing was changed.

There are just too many overpaid & underqualified people out there with the attitude "if I don't know how, no one does".

[herman]

Blocking Mozilla is a convenient way for them to hide their inability to do a good job. Technically, there is no reason whatsoever to block Mozilla. For the aforementioned project , one of their student temps redid the site in his spare time (didn't take much work) and made it work in all Browsers (Netscape 4, IE, Mozilla, Opera,...). Of course, noone seemed to care since they had paid "consultants" a lot of $$$ to do the site and the student temp did a better job at what would have cost roughly $150 (hours of work x hourly pay). Try to explain that to your boss ;-) The result - nothing was changed.

There are just too many overpaid & underqualified people out there with the attitude "if I don't know how, no one does".

Perhaps you can recommend your friend to this seminar provider:

http://www.netseminar.com/

Their system check:
http://www.netseminar.com/ns_website/scc/index.htm

They want IE or NS4, RealPlayerOne or WMP

Checking my mozilla they found:

Netscape v20021111 (Netscape 6.x not supported)


herman

[Germ]

i sent a message using the form redvine posted a link to. Very polite and to the point. Advised them they had lost a customer since I will not use IE or any form of Windows. I use Linux