[X4U] Reasons for "Windows-only" web surveys?

[Jim Robertson]

Yesterday's online Mac press (Macintouch and Ars Technica) contained items
that piqued my curiosity about the Mac vs. PC thing one more time.

A reader reported on Macintouch that CU had a new survey they asked users to
participate in which "would not work with Mac browsers." A common reason for
this has been web developers too lazy to write standards-compliant code, but
this wasn't an instance of "IE only," it was NO Mac browsers.

That made me suspect that the culprit might be an ActiveX requirement. I've
not been invited to take the survey, although I subscribe to the magazine
AND the CU website, so I couldn't see for myself.

My question is this: are there things a web developer can design easily
using ActiveX that cannot be accomplished just as easily (or at similar
cost) with cross-platform tools?

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(grumbling aside): a year or so ago I managed to help persuade the web
developers for a company with whom I work to abandon ActiveX because of its
shoddy security reputation, but then they proceeded to develop a site that
works ONLY on IE (not even Firefox for Windows, and of course it doesn't run
under IE7 either).


The item on Ars Technica commented on Consumers Union's suggestion that
people buy AppleCare if they buy a Mac because Apple offers "only" 90 days
of online support.

Jim Robertson
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