Yahoo pulls Google move; New Yahoo Site blocks Opera browser
17 CommentsPublished May 16th, 2006 1:28 PM EDT By Daniel Goldman
Yahoo today released a preview of its newly redesigned website, and for the moment they block the Opera browser.
Users of the Opera browser who visit the new yahoo.com are shown a message saying “Thanks for your interest in the sneak preview of the new Yahoo! home page. Unfortunately, you’re using a browser we don’t support today.” (See screenshot below).
The new Yahoo site currently only supports Internet Explorer (IE) 6 and Firefox 1.5. I’m not sure about Safari.
Using Opera 9’s new “Site preferences” (See: Opera 9 Review), I was able to mask my browser as Internet Explorer, and was able to view the new Yahoo with no problems. All of the new Yahoo pages seemed display fine in the Opera browser. The only problem that I encountered was tv.yahoo.com, which doesn’t display properly in Opera 9 even on the old Yahoo site. But other than that I’ve seen no problem.
Since the new Yahoo site is still in preview mode, Opera users can still access the old Yahoo website.
It’s important for Opera to get this issue worked out, after all Yahoo is one of the most visited websites on the web.
When I spoke with an Opera spokesman a little while ago about the incompatibility between Opera and the new Yahoo Mail, he sounded optimistic, saying “Yahoo applications have worked fairly well with Opera historically, so we are optimistic. Obviously we will contact them immediately if any compatibility issue exists.”
This is where Opera gets bitten for having such a low market share, less than 1% (10 – 15 million active users).
Having a big market share is not just for bragging rights, it’s almost essential for every browser. Webmasters would naturally be forced to make their websites Opera compatible, if Opera were to have a bigger market share.
Is Yahoo becoming the new Google nightmare for Opera users?
New Yahoo site blocking Opera
(Click on image to enlarge)
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Someone mentioned on Digg that Yahoo UK doesn’t block Opera.
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Switch to “Identify As IE”, then give them feedback from the link at the bottom of the page.
I told them I won’t be bothering to come back. I am not prepared to give up Opera, just so I can get to the Yahoo page.
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Don’t you have that backwards? Shouldn’t webmasters make their sites standards-compatible, not Opera-compatible?
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James, correct. Webmasters should follow standards. I mentioned Opera-compatible since Opera follows most of the standards out there. It passed the Acid2 test.
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It workes with /beta. Very odd.
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Dennis, very odd indeed. Are the Yahoo developers not in-synch with each other?
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They’re blocking everything except IE and FF. Even browsers on same engine as Firefox (Camino, K-Meleon) are blocked. It’s soo lame.
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i hate ppl like yahoo webmasters! let us decide wich browser would worjk better
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Is this even remotely surprising? After all, My Yahoo *still* doesn’t work completely with Opera (e.g. when editing items like sports teams or weather), or is it vice-versa. And it’s been at least a year now since the redesign.
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The search box and “My Yahoo!” and “My Mail” buttons are out of place in Opera 8.5. Since it is the latest official release, that could be why. I don’t know about 9.0 since I’m not home right now.
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Mag-X, it looks fine in Opera 9. Yahoo could still detect browser versions and allow Opera 9. But even if Opera 8.5 is the latest stable version, why then does Yahoo not support it?
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I have been using Opera for past 2 years and would say I can’t even think about switching to another browser. Its features are great whether tabbed browsing or session saving or notes or bookmarks or popup blocking. Another feature Voice is simply great. It works well though I have not been able to issue the opera commands still I could listen to the document which opera read for me. In addition you have download manager and an emai-client. What else do you need? I hope opera would get better & better every day.
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If opera could display the xml documents in the tree structure like in IE it would be much better.
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Yahoo can’t code it’s web pages properly? Does that befit a “corporation” of such a size? Or it has hired ex Microsoft employees/ rejects from Google?
Just wondering. In any case,Yahoo isn’t offering any “earth shattering”/ must have application online which would make life “hell” without it.
Gmail doesn’t still work properly in my Linux version (I have no reason as to why), but with PoP access, who cares? Hence, the best way is to deny them the ad revenue which otherwise I might have been tempted to click out of curiosity. Yahoo/ Google ain’t starving as yet. However, with a mass of people boycotting them out of their idiocies, they MIGHT just be willing to “listen”. Money does get arrogance, but it also gets loads of stupidity.
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Pankaj, install this UserJS file to display XML documents as a tree, just as Internet Explorer does.
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I wouldn’t be too concerned about this – Opera 8.5 on WinXP is an A-grade browser in the Yahoo dev team’s support chart. They say they plan to support more browsers in the coming weeks, and I’m guessing Opera will be included, at least for Windows. And once Opera 9 is finalized, it will likely be supported as well (and A-grade).
When Yahoo first released this new page design, it did so on a lottery basis to IE users only. Now they’re showing it off to anyone with IE or Firefox. By the time it hits live, I’m sure you’ll see wider support.
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Note that new Yahoo site blocks Safari2 (I’m using Tiger) also, FYI. These big search engines don’t fully support the Mac default browser, either…bizarre.