Wal-Mart adds insult to injury with IE-only website

We've known all along that the Wal-Mart Video Downloads service was going to be a Windows-only affair. It's sad, but that's the way that goes sometimes. Is it really necessary, however, to lock the website to Internet Explorer 6+ only? On Tuesday, TechCrunch reported that some coding mistakes on Wal-Mart's page prevented the CSS from loading in Firefox; today, Design by CSS reports that rather than fix the errors, Wal-Mart chose to block other browsers from even trying to load the page. Classy.

Other XP-only movie sites like Movielink or CinemaNow have accessible home pages, or at least a universal splash page to let you know that you can't have the sweet, chewy filmic center without IE. Naturally, Amazon Unbox is accessible with any browser, even though the downloads are locked to XP... and, in a quick reality check, one guess which mobile video player (compatible with none of the above, but only with iTunes) shows up at #1 on the bestseller list. The current ranking for the best-selling portable player (Creative Zen Vision: M) that works with Amazon Unbox movies? #63 — and behind such barnburners as a 50-pack of CD-Rs and the iPod Power Adapter, for crying out loud.

OK, Wal-Mart, go ahead and hide your light under an IE-only bushel. Not only will we not know what we're missing, most likely we won't care, either.

[via Digg]