Why won't OE6 open this link

[Charlie]

I've just been recovering from a bad HD.
XP Pro with SP2 and all the downloads offered by Microsoft as it tries to
catch up on this new HD.

Here's an anomaly I can't get around.
Spouse prefers IE6 (that came with the recovery disc)
I have been using FF.

The problem: she goes to a site to get a recipe. The main page of the site
(Foodnetwork) opens with no problem but a search from within that page
fails with the message that the site cannot be opened and the link below.

http://www.foodnetwork.com/search/delegate.do?fnSearchString=lemon+curd+tart&fnSearchType=site

If I try to access the same site, with FF it opens with no problem and the
link above is the same for either browser.

Suggestions please.

Charlie

 

[rob^_^]

Hi Charlie,

IE6 is what is known as a Quirks browser and was quite suitable for web
pages written in the early days of the Web. FX (not FF) and IE8 are
standards browsers and are designed to work with more modern web pages that
are built to W3C (world wide web consortium) standards.

However the problem is not which browser you wife is using... all web site
developers should test their web pages for the most popular browsers that
their visitors use. IE6 still has a lions share of the web browser market.

The web site foodnetwork was written on a Apple computer, so the programmers
probably have never tested it on a Windows IE6 computer. When I visit the
site and follow your instructions I have no problems with IE8. I can see
that they use a near standards rendering on their homepage and a standards
rendering on their search results page. This tells me that they aren't quite
sure of what they are doing. <laugh> or they don't have the time or money to
upgrade their web site.

They are using a technique called browser sniffing and are detecting that
your wife's web browser is IE6 and are putting it up an incorrect message of
their own(that looks like it is a message from your IE version) and then
redirecting to a standard error page.

Full support for XP SP2 from Microsoft ends this June and you should
consider doing a Windows Update to SP3. The windows update will also offer
an optional upgrade of IE6 to IE8. You can of coarse decide to use another
browser apart from IE8, that is up to you, but IE8 has no problems with the
site for the above reasons. Its not the browser its the shrink wrap that
wrote the site.

Pst....You might get lucky the night you bring home to your wife a new
Windows 7 computer.

Regards.

"Charlie" <left@thestation.com> wrote in message
news:ePbqG7iyKHA.2552@TK2MSFTNGP04.phx.gbl...
> I've just been recovering from a bad HD.
> XP Pro with SP2 and all the downloads offered by Microsoft as it tries to
> catch up on this new HD.
>
> Here's an anomaly I can't get around.
> Spouse prefers IE6 (that came with the recovery disc)
> I have been using FF.
>
> The problem: she goes to a site to get a recipe. The main page of the site
> (Foodnetwork) opens with no problem but a search from within that page
> fails with the message that the site cannot be opened and the link below.
>
> http://www.foodnetwork.com/search/delegate.do?fnSearchString=lemon+curd+tart&fnSearchType=site
>
> If I try to access the same site, with FF it opens with no problem and the
> link above is the same for either browser.
>
> Suggestions please.
>
> Charlie
>