Saw on slashdot that a new music store service had opened up on buymusic.com, $0.79 downloads, using Windows Media Player 9. Hey sounds good says I, so I try to go to the site and get this [archive.org link]:
Thank you for visiting BuyMusic.com.
In order to take full advantage of BuyMusic.com’s offerings you must be on a Windows Operating System using Internet Explorer version 5.0 or higher.
I’ve bitched about this before but geez, I understand that you need WMP to view the files, but holy shit, lock out the entire site to anyone not running IE? What a bunch of fucktards!
Strangely enough opera works fine, even when set to identify as mozilla 5. Still, these guys are getting a nasty email from me as soon as I post this.
Update Looks like the browser detection is just a simple javascript, so turn it (javascript) off and you can go in just fine. The javascript basically denies any browser called Netscape, but not opera and not mac. Very strange, and stupid IMHO.
Update2 I have to admit that I’m impressed with their customer feedback. I got an email reply to my bitch from their feedback form within minutes of a couple of my emails (and that’s not the automated “we got your email” email) and said they’d address my concerns to the Development Team. I doubt anything will actually happen, but it’s nice to have a response for once.