• Eager Eagle@lemmy.world
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    9 months ago

    As if they needed to check for ““compatibility”” at all - just let the users try their makeshift coded-in-a-weekend browsers, or their 2008 version of IE.

    The better question is why some websites even bother checking for the browser when the vast majority of people uses mainstream options that follow web standards and self-update.

    Checking the browser version kind of made sense 15 years ago when updating the browser depended on the user’s awareness and willingness of doing so, and the lack of standards across browsers was blatant. Nowadays that’s pretty much useless. The maximum these sites should be doing is displaying a banner letting the user know their browser might be incompatible (because it’s likely not in a way that prevents usage), then fuck off.

    • RegalPotoo@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      I had a client once who used to be obsessed with this. By his logic, if a potential customer visited the website and had a bad experience because the site didn’t work properly in their browser, they’d think the company was unprofessional and wouldn’t come into the store and we’d lose them as a customer forever. Analytics showed that 99+% of people would visit in one of the big three, and he wouldn’t pay for someone to test the site on the less popular browsers, instead he insisted on fingerprinting logic that broke all the time and probably caused more bounces than any possible rendering quirks from niche mobile browsers would have caused

      • Eager Eagle@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        It’s ridiculous some people even consider blocking a browser completely and having a near 100% chance of turning away the customer that uses it instead of just letting the user browse and have a significant chance of nothing bad happening.

        People are not going to change browsers to visit this website unless they absolutely have to - in which case they’ll hate this company for it.

    • dan@upvote.au
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      9 months ago

      Checking the browser almost never makes sense these days.

      Sites should be using feature detection instead. Rather than checking the browser version, instead check if the browser supports the features they require.

      • herrvogel@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        It’s more practical though, from a more general UX perspective where the U is often a non technical person. If you throw a “ur browser doesn’t support webserial(or whatever)” message up on the screen, you’re just gonna confuse tons of users who won’t even know what the hell you’re talking about. Easier (for everyone) to tell them to just use what you know works.

        • dan@upvote.au
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          9 months ago

          The message doesn’t have to be technical and can still mention browsers - just say “your browser isn’t compatible with this site. Try updating it or switch to Chrome or Edge”. The idea is just that if someone with a non-Chrome and non-Edge browser tries to load the page and it supports the feature, they won’t see the message.

    • earmuff@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      9 months ago

      The problem is that there are still features missing from certain browsers. For example, Mozilla does not like restrictive licenses, which is why many media codecs are not available in Firefox. Google does not care, pays the fees and provides the media codecs for free. As soon as we get rid of shit like h265 and switch to av1, the world will be a better (and more open) place where everyone can use any browser.

      • MonkderZweite@feddit.ch
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        9 months ago

        For example, Mozilla does not like restrictive licenses, which is why many media codecs are not available in Firefox.

        Telling you that is the job of the browser, not of the webpage. Job of the webpage is, to provide a fallback if feature is not avalaible.

        • earmuff@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          9 months ago

          Kinda agree, but from a software developer perspective, there is no reason to maintain multiple code bases or exceptions just because 2% of the users might profit from it. The same thing happened in the past, when everyone had to have special CSS exceptions for IE6. But in that case it was worth it, as the marked share of IE6 was huge.

      • Honytawk@lemmy.zip
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        9 months ago

        Yeah, then just try to load the website.

        If something fails, blame the user. But don’t just block them based solely on brand of browser.

        • earmuff@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          9 months ago

          That‘s the problem. If you show a damaged or non working website, the user assumes it is a problem of the website, then thinking negatively about it. Unfortunately the world is not as easy as you see it :)