Shortly after getting a reply from the Service Monitoring Office of SARS about the lack of service I was getting enquiring about support for browsers except Internet Explorer on Windows, I got a mail from an Interfile (the people who run efiling) employee. Their CEO says I can't divulge anything in their email to me, which means I should just not say what they're doing about it and just leave the impression that they just don't care. Anyway, I won't do that.
Theo explains that during the initial planning, (paraphrased) they just didn't think putting any effort in supporting anything other than Internet Explorer on Windows, as it dominates the market.
However, given the growth of the alternatives, they now support Netscape on Windows, and Internet Explorer on MacOS. Nothing on the web site about it yet, though. And no mention of whether Netscape on Windows support includes Mozilla-based browsers like Firefox. And why it can't support Netscape on Linux...
I was told that they'd gladly assist me with further questions, but that doesn't seem to include replying to my email asking for clarification about a few things. Well, except to say that I can't share the information in the correspondence with anyone. However, I only encountered the disclaimer after reading the email, so it's not that I can unlearn what was said before I disagreed to be bound by it...
(Isn't it a bit stupid to not allow me to report on the good news? Especially considering the negative impressions the two people who come across my bitching about it will have?)
Interfile apparently has the go-ahead from SARS to support more browsers, and that they're looking at Konqueror (Yay!) and Opera in the future.
Ralph sent me this response: "We are currently working on the update will be available shortly." Nothing like giving a sense of information but no real information. I'd like to know 1) Will it run on Mozilla and Linux, 2) When. My original email asked who I could speak to about the fact that their site did not seem to comply with the MIOS (The Governments minimum inter-operability standard). You know those standards that ensure that the Government doesn't waste money on websites that do not adhear to Internet standards. Imagine roling out the whole eGovernmnet solution using technology that only runs on 1 vendors products. It's a bit like creating a phone banking system that only works with Motorola cell phones and nothing else. I am also concerned about the attitude "well 95% of people can access it". How do they cater for people who have other accesibility needs? Since they can't create standard based web content that would just work for other accesibility issues are they also going to say, "Ag poorly sighted people only make up 1% of the population and only 25% of those use the Internet, so we don't see the need to make our website work for them". This is actually a serious issue but seems to have been generally ignored. I must be the 3rd person who read your site!