While checking out Internet Explorer 7’s (beta) ability to render webpages, I’ve found that GoDaddy won’t let me use their site without telling me that my browser is old, and isn’t standards-compliant.

The first mistake they made, is assuming the browser I’m using is old. The second mistake is that they claim it’s because the browser isn’t standards-compliant. It may not be fully compliant, but the whole reason why standards existed was to prevent websites like GoDaddy from using a browser detection script and selectively feeding data to the browser you’re using. Since the script doesn’t recognize the new IE7 browser, it had no idea what to do except to give that default page saying your browser is old and non-standards-compliant.

Here’s a screenshot of the page they gave me when visiting with IE7 beta:

Update: I wrote to GoDaddy using their form on that page about this, and got a response. Read more to read what I wrote and what their reply was.

This is what I wrote to GoDaddy:

Your browser detection script, of course, doesn’t recognize the new IE7 beta browser that I’m using. As a result, I got a page telling me my browser is old and not standards-compliant.

I know it’s a beta, but I do want to point out that the whole idea of standards and compliance is to not have to use browser-detection scripts, and prevent mistakes like this from happening. I feel standards-compliance is wrongly being represented here.

This is their reply:

Thank you for contacting Customer Support. From Microsoft’s own Technical Overview, “The beta 1 release is a very early technical version that lacks the quality, functionality, fit and finish that will come with the final release.” I would suggest using IE6 when browsing our site for best results.

Why do I have a feeling they didn’t really read what I wrote?