State of Florida job portal shuts out alternative browsers
Update: I wrote a post about an email I sent to the State of Florida and the response I received. This was suggested by Sillywampa on Digg. Thanks Sillywampa for the email address.
The State of Florida’s People First job portal is still running an outdated script that locks out users of alternative browsers from applying to state jobs. The only supported browsers are Internet Explorer and Netscape Navigator.
This is very disconcerting for the Mac user, as none of the popular Mac browsers can be used. When attempting to view the site from Firefox or Safari you are taken to this error page:
I first noticed this more than 6 months ago. Trying to be a good citizen, I called the number on the bottom of the page and reported the problem. It seems that the complaint was ignored or not forwarded to the right people. In this day and age it is unacceptable to block the second-most popular browser on the web.
If the site loads properly in Netscape Navigator 6.2, then it will almost certainly load perfectly in Firefox. These browsers both use the Gecko / NGLayout rendering engine.
Update: If you live in the State of Florida and are bothered by this issue, please call 866 ONE-HRFL (866-663-4735). Politely let them know that you cannot access their site, and that there may be an error in the programming. Maybe with enough complaints we can get this issue resolved.
August 26th, 2006 at 10:51 am
Hold on. There is nothing wrong with not supporting alternative browsers. Especially at the government level. Web designers have the right to restrict their sites in any way they choose. If they want to prevent Mac and Linux users from browsing their sites, so be it.
Having said that, government moves very slowly. Changes to public information (web sites are definately in this category) have to go through meeting after meeting after meeting. Then, documents showing the change have to be sent to all major departments for approval. This can take months. Finally, the changes have to be implemented. But wait, thats not the end of it. The changes then have to be reviewed by all of the aforementioned parties. Finally, the changed information makes it on to the site. This can be as much as a year or more later.
It is just the way government works.
August 26th, 2006 at 11:47 am
TheNet411, you are right that the government moves slowly and that webmasters can restrict their websites as they choose. In this case I do not think that the State of Florida actively wanted to exclude Mac / Linux / Firefox… users from accessing their site. It seems that they may have taken a script from the old Microsoft – Netscape days and simply changed the Netscape part to detect version 6.2+. That is all conjecture on my part.
Although it is their right to have the site operate in any way they choose, it seems wrong to block the second-most popular browser, especially as there is no technical reason to do so. It is in the State’s best interests to make the changes as they will open the site up to a larger pool of job applicants. It is also irresponsible for them to have such shoddy code live on the site.
I did the simple thing and installed a plugin to spoof the browser’s user agent and then went ahead and applied. That’s not a solution, and the state really needs to fix this.
August 26th, 2006 at 1:09 pm
Fortunately Opera will allow you to masquerade as other browsers, but that shouldn’t be necessary.
August 26th, 2006 at 6:17 pm
This is ridiculous, I use a Mac and live in Florida!
I believe it is actually against the law at the government level to block access to anyone. I know it is for schools, but they do it anyway. I was applying for Financial Aid for college in Florida and one of the sites was absolutely not mac compatible. Luckily my dad had a pc i could use.
August 26th, 2006 at 6:44 pm
Not supporting IE on a Mac is fine, since it’s obsolete — same reason they don’t havee Betamax versions of your favorite movies at the video store.
Not supportiing Firefox is different. It solidifies Florida’s reputation as a third-world country within the borders of the US.
August 26th, 2006 at 6:49 pm
You are entirely right that a site owner has the right to block whatever browser they choose, IF THEY ARE A PRIVATE WEBSITE. However, a government site, or one being run by a private company on behalf of the government, should not have that right. In fact, it is worth looking into to see if the site if in compliance with Section 508.
August 26th, 2006 at 6:56 pm
Bad move on the goverment’s part… Don’t they want smart people (ie. people who use alternate browsers) to apply for jobs?
August 26th, 2006 at 7:22 pm
TheNet411, I would like to thank you, for perfectly exhibiting the attitudes and behaviors that make up this problem. You are correct; the government usually takes time to change something so simple as a browser except scripting… but that does not make it right. Regardless of the reason for the lethargy of bureaucracy, they are still excluding a large portion of the possible audience for thier job proposals. It is short sighted and backwards, which, in my opinion, perfectly illustrates the problem with the government of today. We should not make excuses for this kind of behavior, we should work to a solution. To those of you who imply that people who use IE are not “smart”, I kindly ask you to step outside. Browser preference is in no way an indication of intelligence, despite IE’s stalwart lack of W3C compliance. What we have here is not a question of intelligence or capability, but rather a government entity that is in violation of the spriti of the EEOC – To not bar employment or consideration of any persons or persons on a basis of bias. In other words, to treat everyone equally. Thank you for your time.
August 26th, 2006 at 7:25 pm
I did what others have done, changed the user agent.
Not soo difficult, really.
August 26th, 2006 at 8:22 pm
Albert Freeman, unfortunately section 508 accessibility rules only apply to federally-funded projects, which this probably isn’t (being a state website). And also, according to some interpretations (eg NASA’s), “accessible to everyone” doesn’t actually mean “accessible to everyone, including people who are not using Microsoft products”.
August 26th, 2006 at 8:23 pm
report it to the media. maybe THEN you’ll get some action
August 26th, 2006 at 8:44 pm
Looking at the source for the website, it appears to be using SAP software. So, it may be SAP that does not support these other web browsers, and not the State of Florida’s problem.
August 26th, 2006 at 9:28 pm
the state of florida’s IT is wholey outsourced to another company which brings their staff to the state. The team is pretty crappy….pretty much people who don’t know simple html. talk about browser compatibility…. lol..
August 26th, 2006 at 9:32 pm
simple example of why state of florida’s website is crappy.
.com domains are for commercial.
.gov domains are for govt.
why is florida using .com and advertising that in every vehicle license plate when they could go with a .gov?
shows the IT team their is headed by some really internet illiterate pple…
August 26th, 2006 at 9:40 pm
I’m running Firefox on a Mac, and with the User Agent Switcher plugin (as the poster above indicated) I’m able to navigate to the site.
August 26th, 2006 at 9:45 pm
itsme,
It always did seem weird that the state is using a .com site. Guess I’m not the only one who noticed.
August 26th, 2006 at 9:53 pm
From the looks of it, aren’t they restricting the browser used so they can ensure the security of the data being transmitted? If I have to send my SSN in a job application over the net, I want to make sure that they can guarantee my information’s safety… I’d hate to have the possibility of my information being insecure if it meant them supporting browsers that they aren’t ready for. Sure, get the support for newer browsers, but… don’t whine because your information is more secure…
August 26th, 2006 at 10:42 pm
My word! Why are we seeing this in our modern day?…
My surprised word! It was today that I read this article about the shunning of people using alternative browsers! Surprised I was that this sort of behavior is still going on in this World Wide Web age.
An argument in the comments of the article, …
August 26th, 2006 at 10:56 pm
The problem with incompatible browsers and trying to apply for jobs on line is just the tip of the iceburg concerning People’s First. Requiring retirees to use a computer to select their benefits each year, and not having sufficient staff to man the phones to answer questions have led many Floridians to name this group Profits First.
August 26th, 2006 at 10:58 pm
I was a lead programmer on the job web site for another, much smaller (read: smaller budget) state. We were *required* to support as many browsers as possible. Anything fancy we did with Javascript we had to replicate with server-side programming. We programmed for 640×480, though the site looked better at higher resolutions. We tested everything in multiple browsers, on Mac, Linux and PC. Even WebTV users could use our site.
The programmers for the State of Florida get nothing but disrespect from me. The *people* are paying your salary. Do the job, and do it right. Firefox is nowhere near a fringe browser. If you are not supporting it, you are not serving a good chunk of the public.
Oh, and security has nothing to do with it (addressing a previous post). Just about every browser on the planet has supported 256 bit encryption for years. It was never a problem for us.
August 26th, 2006 at 11:04 pm
First of all, this can be circumvented on Firefox by using the User Agent Switcher extension & Opera and Konqueror both have built in tools that allow one to masquerade as a different browser.
That being said, this does not surprise me for a government site. Most likely they use a whitelist type configuration in their .htaccess file that only allows the user agent strings they specify. This helps to protect them from various kinds of bad bots that can look through websites – unfortunately though, it can be at the expense of the user.
August 26th, 2006 at 11:34 pm
I worked at the state materials office for about a year and the only browser allowed on their computers was IE. The reason given to me by the tech dept. was because of “security issues with Firefox”. Since I am a tech guy as well (MCSA) I told to go do some research. For Firefox to be let on state owned machines or to even be supported will be determined in Tallahassee and that will take a very long time. I use only use FF at home so I had to get used to IE again.
August 27th, 2006 at 12:34 am
I would hope you have got the message by now that the 200+ million users of Firefox don’t
appreciate being locked out of any website regardless of vendor lockin by a monopoly
that the Federal Govt themselves drug into court and found guilty…
FIXIT IT NOW
PLEASE
THANK YOU
August 27th, 2006 at 12:59 am
guys…this isn’t a conspiracy theory its just a sign of the times.
like many states and organizations florida has a contract with microsoft, discounts,etc…like crack the first one is free. They revolve around microsoft products and most of thier IT is the microsoft ‘type’…lots of certs with people from non IT backgrounds, the ones who do have solid IT background are MS only, etc you know the type…
You guys are thinking too hard like people are making these ‘decisions’ its not a ‘decision’, it is simply, MS is all they know. Alot of the IT people were in completely different fields before they got MS certs. There are quite a few old guys from unix sun days but they just quietly suffer through the daily plague of virus from using outlook, exchange,etc. They are very on top of virus scanning and lockdown though they have to be…that microsoft crap is plagued with it.
in essense if it aint from a box from microsoft its not supported and probably barely even known. Yes it cost a crap load of your tax dollars to buy licenses for all of the states employees so they can do basic spreadsheets. They actually offer classes for excel, access,etc now dont get me wrong…this was faily common a decade ago, but c’mon these are ancient very simple programs from a decade ago but you aren’t going to get a common state worker or even an advanced one these days to know what firefox, macs, mysql, php,perl,etc even are. They dont know. they are born and bred on ‘my computer’, my internet, my my my etc.
people first was farmed out to india, you can google that. Its very complete and also very crappy in alot of regards, but also very MS specific, some of the css is ms only that doesn’t render well in any other browser…yes only retardly simple stuff not even complicated. Thats what you get with indian programmers and MS types and bureaucracy. You can get by with using an agent switcher.
Not saying they shouldn’t use MS but supporting other platforms is ridicoulously simple these days especially for something like this. But hey like i said it was farmed out to india programmers. There was also news report and scandal in that alot of the state of florida employees information data entry was farmed out to india….they ended up buying credit protection for everyone.
just my .02.
August 27th, 2006 at 1:06 am
A script that checks browser agent is by no means a security measure since it can be easily circumvented. It is rather a method to make sure that a user’s browser supports certain features implemented by the web site. With that being said, this is a very lazy and antiquated approach.
As far as accessibility, according to ONESTAT.COM, as of 2005, Worldwide Browser Usage Rates (couldn’t find Florida stats):
Internet Explorer 85.45 %
Mozilla & Firefox 11.51%
August 27th, 2006 at 1:10 am
Worldwide Browser Usage Rates:
Internet Explorer 85.45 %
Mozilla & Firefox 11.51% *
Opera 1.75%
Safari 0.77%
Netscape 0.26% *
Other 0.26%
August 27th, 2006 at 1:17 am
Also i must point out that just typically a large organization like florida standardizes on a platform and that is microsoft. But theres nothing i’ve seen in people first that requires msie…internally i would say the backend is a little archiac in its navigation,etc….kind of like it was done 5-10 years ago, or very unfriendly like you brought a bunch of MS certs to do it who have lots of newer knowledge but may be lacking in long term experience, common gotcha’s, etc.
The system is undoubtly extremely complicated as it manages everything it seems for florida organizations.. Also you have to think that given this was probably planned out gawd knows how many years ago…this isn’t to be unexpected.
August 27th, 2006 at 2:30 am
IE7 does not work. In a few months this site will have problems
August 27th, 2006 at 2:35 am
There is a `defaults write’ option to expose the User Agent identification that will fake what browser you happen to be.
This exposes the Debug menu for developers using Safari:
Open Terminal and at the shell prompt:
$ defaults write com.apple.Safari IncludeDebugMenu 1
Source: http://developer.apple.com/internet/safari/faq.html#anchor14
August 27th, 2006 at 2:47 am
And I’d never, ever work at such a backward operation.
August 27th, 2006 at 4:46 am
want to change your useragent real easily in Firefox,
its as easy as this
1) type in address bar about:config
2) create a new string
right-click and select New ~ String
3) As preference name enter
general.useragent.override
4) As for value write which ever useragent you want to spoof
There you go. As simple as that. And you can reset this string and you have it all back to normal.
As for the webmasters doing these kind of unprofessional shit, its not new since we have so much Micro$oft lovers around.
August 27th, 2006 at 5:09 am
Serverside UA check, try to set your UA to “Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; The State of Florida’s People First Job Portal webmaster ARE STUPID)”
Nobody to run this bash script ?
while /bin/true ; do wget “https://peoplefirst.myflorida.com/” -d –user-agent=”Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; The State of Florida’s People First Job Portal webmaster ARE STUPID)” –delete-after -o /dev/null; done
August 27th, 2006 at 1:37 pm
I guess it all boils down to: “Noone ever got fired for buying Microsoft.”
August 27th, 2006 at 1:54 pm
the website is designed using php….not .net
some are designed using coldfusion…
August 27th, 2006 at 2:24 pm
itsme is right, im wrong…the job portal seems to be in php, coldfusion. that probably is not done internally and is farmed out is my guess to a local company. internally everything is .net i believe. externally alot of stuff is normally contracted out. but i could be wrong as i was here
August 27th, 2006 at 4:45 pm
in the know,
state of florida has policy on outsourcing.
even if a project is outsourced the work should be done in state premises, that would be one of the state buildings in tallahassee. projects are NEVER offshored.
i would really blame the IT management team there, because they set the rules and programmers just have to do what they say. interesting example: advertising myflorida.com in every license place is one of those arrogant and uninformed things the state does. why not a .gov name? its a govt …….not a commercial business…Do you think they’ll listen to any technical person there?
August 27th, 2006 at 9:10 pm
oh yeah you’re correct, i’m not getting anything right..it was thinking of the peoplefirst HR system Data entry was subcontracted by a company which used offshore labor to do the DE
http://www.computerworld.com/securitytopics/security/story/0,10801,109938,00.html
Despite assurances by Convergys that personal information on state employees is safely kept on computers in the United States, a once-secret lawsuit against a former subcontractor alleges that private data was sent to India, Barbados and possibly China. [... Plaintiff attorney] Newcomer said GDXdata used overseas scanning and indexing services “to save money” without telling Convergys. The suit says Convergys had billed the state at least $32 million when the case was filed, for work the company and the state thought was done domestically.
so i would really be surprised if even some of the programming for that HR system wasn’t offshored…state probably didn’t even know it. In this day and age its to be expected.
whos knows with all the beaucracy…payoffs,personal pet projects of officials,etc what goes on. I dont understand the .com, probably some people think it means more traffic ala 1996 or maybe they think its easier to remember or just is more common….or who knows, in govt no shortage of people to come up with nutty ideas. No i dont think they listen to technical people…
August 27th, 2006 at 9:56 pm
I hope security is not the reason they force the use of IE. I wonder if the tourism sites are IE only????
Kinda sad in this day and age we still have people who think MS is the best solution. Guessing those who do have never used it much.
Better solutions are out there and well free. Guess Gov could never use Linux and OpenOffice and get by, its not spending enough of our money.
August 29th, 2006 at 8:41 am
“I’m running Firefox on a Mac, and with the User Agent Switcher plugin (as the poster above indicated) I’m able to navigate to the site” (Chad).
I agree. Make sure you have the user agent active before you open the site. Go to the link below for the Switcher Agent.
https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/59/
Ray
August 29th, 2006 at 11:14 pm
Derose Technologies of Pompano Beach Florida is also concerned about the issues raised in this post. They have written an article about this, and have sent an email to the Florida State Technology Office. I am hoping that that email is better received than my email to PeopleFirst@dms.myflorida.com.
The article is located here:
http://www.derosetechnologies.com/news/state-of-florida-job-portal-discriminates-alternative-web-browsers
August 31st, 2006 at 1:04 pm
You can go into about:config in firefox and change general.useragent.extra.firefox.
August 31st, 2006 at 10:31 pm
Only the first page in the site refers surfers using alternative web browsers to the “reject” page. But the site is cheaply designed, and who wants to work in Florida anyway? State jobs pay fairly well, but often they are boring, monotonous and thankless desk jobs (I am in one now). a desk job is bad enough, but if you are working outdoors in Florida say hi to Satan for me.