I use a Mac. A lot of people use Macs.
We’re not all weirdos.
Honest
However there is nothing more annoying than a website that explicitly tells you that your choice of computer will not work:
If it was a simple bit of brochureware I wouldn’t mind as much, though I’d still think it was a bit odd.
However it’s not.
It’s the ecommerce site for Argos in the Spanish market. That they’ve chosen the rather odd domain argos-spain.co.uk is a possible indication of their online strategy. The Argos group owns the domain argos.eu as well, but it’s not doing anything at the moment, apart from possibly gathering virtual dust. (The .es would have been a more obvious and better choice, but a Spanish company has it)
Of course the funny thing is that the site does work fine on a Mac. It probably works fine on Linux as well, though I haven’t had a chance to test it yet ..
There are other oddities littered around the site, but this one amused me:
Doesn’t that look like a selector? Well you’d be wrong. There’s only one country in the dropdown, so why on earth is it a dropdown? And why “zip code”? Shouldn’t it be “post code” ?
And if you think I’m just some cranky raincoat who sits in his room all night trying to find broken websites, then maybe I should explain how I got onto the Argos Spain site in the first place.
Seems like someone has broken the Argos Ireland site quite badly.
If you try to go to the main page of argos.ie you immediately get redirected to the .co.uk, which isn’t much use as:
- all the prices are in Sterling
- the catalogue is different
- it doesn’t list the Irish shops, so you can’t check if they have the items in stock
Ah well ..
You can get to the Argos Ireland site eventually, but you have to get there via the UK site… and the URLs are “interesting” to say the least ..
Now if only they’d fix that redirect …
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Argos Spain? Have you tried visiting the Irish eFlow website? Last time I was on it, it won’t allow any other browser other than firefox and IE to pay your fees. It’s so bloody stupid. I can’t remember the last time I saw a site in the last ten years that browser sniffs
John
I’ve got an account with eFlow, so I haven’t had the “pleasure” of dealing with it. Though I don’t use that road enough to justify the expense, so maybe I will have to find out soon …
Isn’t eFlow a state run site?
Michele
Yes, eFlow is a state run site, some company runs it on behalf of the NRA in fact. THe population of this country is too small for any group of people to make enough of a stink for a company like this to make the change. I think, though, that if they removed the browser sniffing, the site would run just fine in all the major browsers. I couldn’t see this happening in the UK
Aren’t state run sites meant to conform to certain accessibility guidelines? Or was I imagining that?
I would assume the site conforms to accessibility guidelines, the fact it stops users of any other browser other than two doesn’t fall under accessibility- the W3C assume that browser sniffing stopped 10 years ago or so. In all my online travels, the eFlow site is the only one that stops you from using it. Maybe I should write a letter to them, looking for an explanation.
interesting – I see they require IE6+ or Firefox 4+, which would be great, except that FF4 doesn’t exist…
I assume it /was/ Netscape 4, until someone pointed out that no-one uses that any more. They then “upgraded” by swapping Netscape with Firefox.
That’s a new thing, argos.ie worked only last month. Now how DO you get back to the Irish site?
adam
Adam
You need to sacrifice a couple of small animals 🙂
Ok – go to the argos.ie site. You’ll get redirected to the UK one.
Click on the “store locator” link up the top right.
Then from that page click on the link to argos.ie – it’s actually to a deep link on the Argos Ireland site.
You can now *navigate* the Argos.ie site.
It’s painful to say the least!
Michele
Brilliant. It just looks like a broken redirect though, I hope you fed back to them before you mulleyed about it here? 😉
There’s a thread on boards.ie about it – I think a few people have been in contact about it
Trying to go to Argos.ie has never redirected me to the Argos uk site and i check it out quite regularly for bargain offers.And no, i am not going to the site via a bookmarked link, i always google it.What is probably redirecting you is google uk.I however use google.ie.
If i wanted to be funny and yet have it with a hint of truth but sound childish at the same time i would probably shout “n00bs!”
😉
Erm.I suggest you nubs should try using google.ie rather than google uk or whatever if you are searching for irish sites.This very site we are on now is about the 5th suggestion down the list, with the top suggestion being argos.ie.And yes, it`s always been that way for as long as argos ireland has existed.
I think the mac user quote is a possible indication as to the problem here, as the only people that i have ever seen using macs are basically computer illiterates.This is not intended as a blatent insult but rather something i have noticed over the years of fixing various personal computer problems the general public has.mac users are (in general) the most clueless.
The post was a month ago, dummy. You wouldn’t know a noob if it came up and bit you on the ass.
Dahamsta – Exactly
Looks like they’ve fixed it since I posted this
And why on earth would anyone use Google to find a website when you know its address?
Argos is loosing touch. It took them 2 years to launch the Spanish service which cost around a million pounds as an Argos informer told me. They will fail this venture soon becasue the delivery charge is unrealistic for them to sustain such costs as well as they have around 3 thousand products available as opposed to full range in exces of 20 thousand.
Tesco Direct soon will launch in Spain, with a better service and prices. I believe there is a franchise already. Look at the site http://www.homeshoppingdirect.es.