Written by granadajose the 11 Nov 08 at 11:52.
Category: Usability.
Related project:
Nothing/Others.
Status: New
Rationale
Microsoft has changed the Hotmail website and, as a result of this change, Ubuntu users are not able to write emails using Firefox. There are a few workarounds to fix this, but neither of them are easy to implement.
Obviously, it would be better to use a more friendly email provider (such as Gmail). However, as Hotmail is a very popular email system and it is not easy to migrate an email account it is urgent solving this trough an update build in colaboration with Mozilla, so users could check and write any email provider using Ubuntu.
AndrewLuecke, I just think that Canonical should contact Firefox to prepare an update so all users could use the Hotmail service without having to manually configure it.
I think this is important since Hotmail is a popular service. Ubuntu is free software and it should offer users the possibility of using the mail service they want.
I don't know about websites in Australia but here in Spain, 99,9% of pages do work in Firefox.
Microsoft can not be considered free of guilt. There are a high number of users that use Hotmail from Linux. Hotmail is not a Windows application, it is a web service, so it should work on all computers with a compliant web browser. Microsoft has not created a compliant web service, and it has forced the upgrade of the users.
So Firefox should start implementing site-specific hacks and reporting with a fake user-agent string?
Then, I rather see Firefox come with a GreaseMonkey script inserts "Microsoft recommends Gmail" into hotmail, or a DNS hijack that forwards hotmail.com to gmail.com. ;)