New BBC site struggles with Firefox

Barry Collins Read more October 7, 2009

The redesigned BBC News website is struggling to work with the Firefox browser.

Several members of the PC Pro office have noticed that the browser won’t play the new embedded videos in the BBC News site. The same page works perfectly with Internet Explorer or Opera.

And the PC Pro office isn’t alone, judging by several internet forums reporting similar problems, such as Mozillazine One of the members on that board claims to have received a reply from the BBC’s technical support team which states: “We are in the process of getting the Firefox issues sorted out.”

The BBC press office was unable to comment on the problems at the time of publication.

However, the troubleshooting pages on the BBC News website curiously omits Firefox from the list of supported browsers.

“System requirements for embedded video and audio player meet current BBC web standards. These include Netscape 5 and above, Microsoft Internet Explorer 5 and above, or Opera 7 and above. (Other browsers may work with the BBC News Player, however the BBC is unable to guarantee their compatibility),” it states.

Firefox has a market share of around 15% in the global browser market, while Opera and Netscape Navigator are used by fewer than 1% of users, according to TheCounter.com stats.

This isn’t the first time the BBC’s iPlayer video has caused ructions with the open-source community. Last year, the BBC caused huge controversy when it claimed only 400 to 600 visitors using Linux visited its sites every week in an attempt to justify the then Windows-only availability of the iPlayer. It subsequently admitted the figure was closer to 100,000.