I’ve had a very disappointing experience with Rediff. For a company, which is India’s internet pioneer and also our biggest portal, should be doing better than this. It seems that there is a horrible bug in a very critical part of their website that has gone unattended for a long time, or something worse than that – their shopping cart does not work in Firefox. Let me explain. (Incidentally, I quite like Rediff and it has been the default homepage in my browser, uninterrupted for three years now).
I bought the Webyantra.net domain on the web hosting section on Rediff almost an year back (Apr06). I clearly remember that at the time of making the online payment for the domain on Rediff Business Solutions, the system showed a bug (it showed a static white screen just after clicking the ‘make payment’ button in the shopping cart). I had to try it out a few times, with the same result, and eventually succeeded after 5-6 frustrating attempts. While the experience was bad, I attributed it to some random bug and forgot about it. Yesterday I had to renew the domain name as it was nearing expiry. I again logged into my Rediff web hosting account to make the payment using the shopping cart. And I got EXACTLY THE SAME BUG (not once, but twice). Quite bewildered and not sure what to do, I decided to try it out in IE (My default browser is Firefox). The transaction sailed through perfectly. Though last year, I had never tried out Internet Explorer (it had not occurred to me then). Thus it seems likely that the shopping cart does not work in Firefox (a bug that is unsolved for one long year is highly improbable). I checked on the site’s FAQ but could not find anything. Somebody please correct me if I am wrong.
I have personally encountered Firefox incompatibility problems on a couple of other popular Indian sites earlier – PVR Cinemas and AirDeccan. One might argue that the IE/Firefox browser wars are for the open source nerds & alpha geeks and don’t really matter to Indian consumer internet sites, for Firefox’s penetration figures in India are surely abysmal. Well, I appreciate that argument and think it probably makes sense for PVR Cinemas & AirDeccan to ignore Firefox. But not for Rediff.
The Hall of Shame: On googling further on this issue, I ran into the Hall of Shame, which is a compilation of Indian websites (on the Delhi Linux User group website) that don’t work on Linux or Firefox (work only on IE). Rediff’s name is not there but a few prominent establishments or companies certainly find mention in this infamous list.
My question to Webyantra’s readers- Have other people encountered similar problems with Rediff or do you know of other prominent Indian sites that don’t work on FF? Or is this a non-issue?
its quite standard to find the “…best viewed in IE…” on many indian websites. i have been using firefox for a year now – and had no problems so far. the larger violation for me personally are the pop ups and blinking text/ images that dominate most indian sites.
is browser compatibility an issue or a non- issue? i guess it would depend on your context. just as accessibility isn’t an issue for a lot of people.
I have similar problem with Rediff. I used to like Rediff, but now with so many annoying ads, I started hating it.
Another site is Sulekha cricket: http://cricket.sulekha.com/
It’s layout is not correct.
Tried booking a railway ticket on IRCTC during the daytime?
1. It’s painfully slow
2. Usabilty is absolutely negative
3. Payment is impossible due to payment g/w failures
They are the biggest as far as online travel goes. They probably have multi-crore trasxn for Maharashtra alone in a month. It’s hard to believe why they won’t rethink their site.
– Santosh
I have encountered the exact same problem on Indiatimes. Took me sometime to figure out that it was my browser. I would actually say that India sites don’t cater to the usability bud yet…
I had a good user experience at rediff with their shopping portal. But I use IE.
I’m sure that now when Internet users are demanding a better user experience, those who do not respond to such issues will have trouble.
It gives me hope that the time for a more responsive organisation/s is coming to India now.
I have been using Firefox for a year now. There have been many instances where I had problems with Indian sites, & everytime, it takes a while to click that it could be browser.
Some of the sites which didn’t display correctly or didn’t work at all with firefox are –
– Zapak
– PVR Cinemas
– ABN Amro (http://www.abnamro.co.in)
– IRCTC
I think the sites, which cater to the mass market should be firefox compatible.
One very embarassing/funny moment for me was when I was sitting with one of my friends & was trying to convert him from IE to firefox by telling him how great firefox is & blah blah .. & we opened one of the sites (it was site of a Chinese exporter) & the site functionality didn’t work. I blamed the site for that (of-course). After some time, my friend opened the same site with IE & everything seemed to work. Of-course, he didn’t convert to IE 🙂
Hi,
I am a novice in this space.
i wonder why you guys make such a big issue about IE and firefox. what matters to to the end user is that the work should be done smoothly whichever browser is used.
i also wonder why the geek types are so anti-IE (read Microsoft) after all more than half of you must have used IE for browsing and learning what open source means!
So why are you trying to bring communism to internet, suddenly. give the devil his due.
exact same problem with rediff….i was wanting some .in domain names, and it didnt cross my mind that it could be ie/firefox thingy..so i just gave up ..rediff sure lost my business
My comments are here.
Actually my comments are here.
Hello,
I came across the post and have the tested the relevant sections. Both for normal product shopping as well as from the above mentioned Business Solution section, orders could be placed and completed – both in IE as well as Firefox. The key sections in Rediff are regularly tested with the new browsers and then rolled out. The problem described seems more transitory and non- browser related. Would be obliged if you directly contact Rediff Customer Support on 022 24449144 and describe the exact nature of the problem and whether you are still getting it.
Regards,
I do have this problem in rediff shopping, i bought some .in domain names with rediff. After making the payment it shows a white screen and this problem is there from atleast 2 years as far as i know. I havent tested with IE so far.
Atindriya,
I guess you are from Rediff.
Well my job is done for the time being…so I can only try it out next year…but as you would have noticed in the comments above, I am not alone….others seem to have faced it as well…
About pop up ads on Indian sites, the google toolbar (with the pop up blocker) is what I use , and it solves the pop up problem easily.
The problem is more so with Opera (though opera being the most standards compliant browser out of IE, FF and Opera). Even the inline gmail chat does not work in Opera, but once you set it up to identify as Firefox or Internet Explorer, it works just fine! So forget about Rediff, if even Google can do browser censorship! For the records, Opera passes the ACID2 test whereas Firefox and Internet Explorer dont.
Jetairways
GoAir
—–
Oh my case is worse – I use Safari on my mac.
ICICI Bank.
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i used firefox on ubuntu to access rediff and it worked fine.
Or placenta birth control pills and babe acne topper before date? Yeah one of the placenta itself.