DWP to make websites Firefox compliant |
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Sun, 28 Aug 2005 11:05
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LONDON - The Department for Work & Pensions (DWP) has awakened to the popularity of Mozilla's Firefox web browser and has vowed to make its websites "Firefox friendly." The DWP also said that it would try to make its sites compatible to as many browsers as possible.
"We are very much aware of the widening range of browsers used by our customers, such as Firefox and Opera. We aim to address this, so that our websites work in as many browsers, and on as many platforms as possible," said Carl Mawson, the head of e-communications at the DWP. Currently, the job search feature on the Jobcentreplus site does not support Firefox browser and any attempt to access the content there is met with a blank page.
Mawson said that the DWP was working to remedy this problem and it should be working by the end of this year, "The Jobcentre Plus website itself does work using non-IE browsers such as Firefox. However, the job vacancy search element does not. It is however being redesigned to be compatible with non-IE browsers and we aim to deliver this towards the end of the year," he observed. Mawson added that this step was being taken in response to customer demands. The DWP's own assessment was also a factor in taking the step to upgrade their sites to be all browser-friendly.
DWP is not the only organization, which has had to work towards making sites more compatible to a variety of browsers including Firefox and Opera. With the increasing market share of browsers based on open source software, many organizations are being forced to upgrade their sites. Software Company AutoDesk announced on Thursday that it was working towards Firefox support for MapGuide, "We consider Firefox support to be essential and are working on it for the next version of MapGuide," an AutoDesk spokesman commented.
But the website of cinema chain Odeon is not Firefox-friendly in that viewers cannot book their tickets online. The company has no plans to change this, "The Odeon website can be viewed by Firefox users by clicking on the 'text version' option on the home page. This includes all necessary information, including film times and booking," an Odeon spokesman confirmed.
In the last 12 months, the popularity of open source browser, Firefox has soared since Microsoft's Internet Explorer has been beset with bugs. Web analytics firm OneStat.com says that the market share for the open source browser has increased from 2.1 per cent in May 2004 to 8.7 per cent in April 2005.
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