I'm helping out a friend of mine and she needs to access this site:

https://navinet.navimedix.com

On OSX. I used to use IE Tab but it doesn't seem to support OSX. Any alternatives to telling the site it's IE?

-hahah this is hilarious. I found this gem:

http://hintsforums.macworld.com/archive/index.php/t-111479.html

Friend i'm working for is also a therapist. Same site. I guess I could install parallels or bootcamp for her. She's not very computer literate and I really don't feel like messing with it. grr.

Guess i'm out of luck. Lazy programmers not complying with internet standards.

[Edited on October 3, 2010 at 4:10 PM. Reason : s]

10/3/2010 3:50:18 PM

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/59/

10/3/2010 4:38:10 PM

It says you need activeX; which to my knowledge can't just be 'spoofed' by changing user agent

You need a virtual machine, dual boot, or a real PC. Welcome to the world of 8% market share.

10/3/2010 8:22:59 PM

yeah figured.

^what market share? IE is still at 50% afaik. You mean 8% of sites use activex and require IE?

10/3/2010 8:26:13 PM

No, he means Apple.

10/3/2010 8:59:41 PM

ooooh yeah gotcha. It's more about internet standards. If 50% of the market isn't using IE a major healthcare company shouldn't rely on activex and IE for their consumer website.

10/3/2010 9:11:56 PM

Newsflash: The only people who care about internet standards are web developers and designers.

10/3/2010 10:00:01 PM

Every windows computer sold has IE in some form since like windows 3.11

If you can guarantee me that 92% of the worlds computers are compatible with my software I am 100% ok with those numbers. In fact the only thing I can think of more ubiquitous would be Flash, king up at a staggering 99.3%.

ActiveX is used to run native-level code on remote machines. Making them many, many times more efficient in code execution without the problems associated with browser translations (notice any websites with jacked up fonts that are not part of the OSX install base?) You're trying to compare something like a java applet to a rendered page in a browser.

10/3/2010 10:05:17 PM

^^^ & ^^

At the risk of going off-topic, I was curious as the exact question "who cares about internet standards", so I asked the oracle that is Google.

This article in particular was interesting, written near the end of 2008 when Chrome was launching:
http://www.centernetworks.com/google-chrome-web-browser

The interesting part is his "meh" attitude toward a new browser when IE still had an estimated 75%+ market share. And there in 2008 upon the launch of Chrome, he calls it " little more than pissing in the wind". But actually, his point in the article is not against new browsers, but the fact that he doesn't see IE being unseated in the next decade. At the time he also didn't realize that Google wanted to use their browser to push innovation, not become the next IE.

One more side note: just 2 short years after 2008, both Firefox and Chrome have knocked IE's number down almost a full 25 points to a median of 51% market share (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_web_browsers#Summary_table). This is significant because it took double that time (the 4 years after 2004) for IE's number to slowly drop 15 points from 90% to 75% (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_web_browsers#Net_Applications_.282004_Q4_to_present.29).

Anyway, I'm glad for choices and thankful for the innovation that they encourage. Sorry you have to figure out how to make something work in IE.

10/4/2010 12:03:00 AM

Fuck IE.

Who in the hell uses IE, other than people on government or maybe business computers who aren't permitted to install a better browser (read: any other browser)?

10/4/2010 9:18:32 AM

use sliverlight, problem solved.

10/4/2010 9:23:38 AM

^^ 60% of all internet users.

10/4/2010 9:46:24 AM