For various reasons, many web designers have an annoying habit to create sites that only work in Microsoft InternetExplorer. Often they've used a Microsoft tool that creates dirty HTML, and sometimes the designers claim that they're using advanced features 'only supported by IE' or that it's 'too hard' to design and test for more than one WebBrowser.

There are a number of sites that discuss this issue.

• http://members.optusnet.com.au/night.owl/morons.html
• http://www.anybrowser.org/campaign/
• http://www.webstandards.org/

See also LinuxFriendlyBanks, and RealWorldWebCompliance

Hall Of Shame

There are a number of sites in New Zealand that suffer from this problem. Feel free to add any you encounter to this list after you have emailled the web master with your carefully written description of the problem:

https://myaccount.genesisenergy.co.nz/portal/portal.htm

"MyAccount is designed to run with Microsoft Internet Explorer. You should be using MSIE 5.5+". If you are a Genesis Energy customer you might like to drop them a line on info@genesisenergy.co.nz and politely suggest that they fix their system so that you can use it.

"In line with our commitment to improving peoples experience with Genesis Energy, your comments have been passed on to our Web Development Team and we will be sure to advise you of the progress made in refining and improving our web site." (2006-10-09)

"Our IT Department is working on a solution for this and we hope to have the service open to other browsers in the near future." (2006-08-29)

http://www.butch.co.nz/

You can only register on their website using InternetExplorer. Once you're on there everything else appears to work just fine in Firefox. The webmaster was politely informed approximately three years ago. Their 'solution' was to add a big red box on the page that tells you some functionality will only work with MSIE 5.0 or above.

http://members.tripod.com/cbranz/

It takes some skill to design a website this bad! (warning: blink tags)

http://www.supertrust.co.nz/

"Your browser is not supported on this site, please download Explorer 5.0 or above from Microsoft Corporation."

http://www.frogprints.co.nz/

"You will need Internet Explorer 5.5 or above to really appreciate the new process!" What this means that if you use a Mozilla-based browser to upload photos from a DigitalCamera for printing, then the process will seem to work okay until after you have uploaded your many megabytes of photos, entered in your payment details, and click "next" -- and then it will go back to the start and ask you to upload your photos again (and keep doing this if you try again). (Also there were several other non-browser specific but serious technical problems, but this is not the correct page for dicussing them.) Their sales team did not even bother to respond to a politely worded email discussing these problems. Of course, they also have a page entitled Top 10 Reasons to Use Windows XP Professional for Digital Photography so perhaps they are not interested in non-Windows/Internet Explorer using consumers. -- JohnMcPherson

http://www.ltsatransact.govt.nz/

This website (Land Transport Safety Authority) has issues with sessions expiring when trying to perform any online transactions in Mozilla or Firefox. They are now aware of this issue, so hopefully it will be corrected soon. (July 2005)