Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Computer discrimination?

MechaSpanky

MechaSpanky

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Sep 11, 2007
313
152
I had to file some paperwork with my state today and I was shocked to read that I must use Internet Explorer in order to file paperwork digitally. I thought this is ridiculous, is it the year 2000? No, it isn't. Why not choose something open? Why not Chrome? Firefox or Safari? I was even more surprised to read that it requires Java runtime to be installed. I tend to keep Java off my computer because there seems to be lots of bugs and trojans that exploit it. No thanks. I know that many people will say "what do you expect, it is the government?" but to those people, government should offer things in ways that everyone (or most everyone) can assess them and in a secure way (Internet Explorer doesn't exactly make you confident that you're secure). What they are doing is computer discrimination (I'm joking of course but I would like to see my state government using more open standards). I wonder how many other states do this? I used the federal government's website many times last year and I never had any troubles using Safari.
 
MechaSpanky said:
I had to file some paperwork with my state today and I was shocked to read that I must use Internet Explorer in order to file paperwork digitally.
Click to expand...
You could try setting user agent for the browser. For example on safari 10:
safari > preferences > advanced > check "show develop menu in menu bar",
and then:
develop > user agent > internet explorer 11.
 
  • Like
Reactions: MechaSpanky
This is a fairly common issue where web programs are reccomended to be used with a specific web browser. I remember back in my College days Blackboard was suggested to be run on Firefox, especially when taking online quizzes. Meanwhile the school's awful and archaic registration software "ran" on I.E.

I believe the programs will run on alternative browsers but all the testing and compatibility had been done with a specific browser. Unfortuanately older programs are suck in Internet Explorer land.

To consider this "discrimination" is quite hyperbolic.
 
  • Like
Reactions: v0lume4, mobilehaathi, Scepticalscribe and 1 other person
Well, as a project manager myself... when you have a technician with experience and you put a supervisor on top with less experience... the amount of progress and speed to troubleshot goes from 15 minutes to a day. It means... that something the technician can resolve in 15 minutes now it would take a day because the technician has to explain to his superior... make him understand, accept and then execute.

That is just with ONE person on top. Imagine having at least 3 people on top of you and then a board of directors and then a town voting.... you go for 15 minutes to 6 months to a year. Bureaucracy.
 
  • Like
Reactions: AlliFlowers
Most of the government systems are using Microsoft based operating systems and interfacing with products like IIS and SharePoint. This is probably not going to change anytime in the near future and with budgets getting slashed left and right, they probably don't have the staff or manpower to update their sites. So, you have to use older tech to get things done. I watched my entire development staff get cut (8 people) down to a single person and then they wanted to add more projects. Needless to say, nothing got accomplished and I finally had enough and moved on. Life in the public sector really sucks sometimes.

You can probably get the site to function with Chrome or FireFox, but it will take some tweaking.
 
MechaSpanky said:
I was shocked to read that I must use Internet Explorer in order to file paperwork digitally.
Click to expand...
There are many enterprise applications that are written specifically for IE. We have a couple of them in my company. Its becoming less of a problem, but I can see governments having older systems that would be upgraded and so must continue to use IE
 
  • Like
Reactions: v0lume4
maflynn said:
There are many enterprise applications that are written specifically for IE. We have a couple of them in my company. Its becoming less of a problem, but I can see governments having older systems that would be upgraded and so must continue to use IE
Click to expand...


So true, I do some work in the public sector (State and Federal) and there's a ton of legacy infrastructure, lots of apps that just haven't been recoded to updated standards, and some (per the OP) are even browser specific (due to some combination of layout, features, plugins).

I've been proactive about pushing new standards and our little corner of the Federal government - at least in terms of OS/browsers - is making pretty good progress (they're actually using Chrome ... *gasp*)

I do a lot of work in the private sector as well, so you can imagine the mental reset that's required as I move between cutting edge and tech that's 5 years old :D
 
A.Goldberg said:
This is a fairly common issue where web programs are reccomended to be used with a specific web browser. I remember back in my College days Blackboard was suggested to be run on Firefox, especially when taking online quizzes. Meanwhile the school's awful and archaic registration software "ran" on I.E.

I believe the programs will run on alternative browsers but all the testing and compatibility had been done with a specific browser. Unfortuanately older programs are suck in Internet Explorer land.

To consider this "discrimination" is quite hyperbolic.
Click to expand...

I'm seeing this on certain Bank/credit card web sites. They will have a link that says something like approved or check your browsers, although I've not seen one that works only on one browser, Explorer. Firefox is my preferred browser, but when I run into this issue, usually switching to Safari solves it.

For the OP, Java is not that unusual, and on my Mac, I've not noticed any issues with having it installed.
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: A.Goldberg
D.T. said:
So true, I do some work in the public sector (State and Federal) and there's a ton of legacy infrastructure, lots of apps that just haven't been recoded to updated standards, and some (per the OP) are even browser specific (due to some combination of layout, features, plugins).

I've been proactive about pushing new standards and our little corner of the Federal government - at least in terms of OS/browsers - is making pretty good progress (they're actually using Chrome ... *gasp*)

I do a lot of work in the private sector as well, so you can imagine the mental reset that's required as I move between cutting edge and tech that's 5 years old :D
Click to expand...

Do you work for the Federal Government in one of the IT departments?
 
I should file charges of computer discrimination against my workplace for only providing Windows PCs. And the software companies as well do not make Mac OS software versions.
 
At work I have to use IE for our internal CVTV.
I have to use Chrome for our main business system.
I have to use firefox for our CRM system.

It makes for fun PC sessions.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back