DragonDrew said:
Add to card works for me.
It's marginally interesting that it works for someone. And it's almost certain that it works for someone because if it didn't work for the web admin the web admin would discover and fix the bug. Perhaps you're unaware of the poor interoperability between the more exotic uses of web technologies and various browsers. What happens in a stock Chromium browser and what happens in a Firefox browser with a dozen different plugins very much differs when fed the same website. The more complex and fancy a website is coded to be, the less interoperability you have and the more browsers you will break.
DragonDrew said:
There is no "Contact Us' on the products page, only a "Contacts" button, which works fine.
The nondeterminism is an artifact of the design of their page. Sometimes "contact us" appears on the product page, and sometimes not. I've seen it both ways.
DragonDrew said:
Send Us a Message button creates a pop up form, works fine.
I did not get the pop up and that was in a browser without a popup blocker plugin. Perhaps pop-up blocking is built into the browser - didn't check. Regardless, it's a poor webpage design. It's a bad idea to code essential functionality as a popup the same way intrusive ads are designed -- and thus subject to ad blocking.
Some web admins will deliberately use popups for essential functionality (such as a login form) to force users to disable their popup blockers, so that then they can hit the users with the most imposing ads. I suspect in the case of Miranda it's more incompetence than malice. Either way, it's a bad design; users don't want popups.
DragonDrew said:
Contact page is not broken, google reCaptcha problem is yours to own. Accept their spam protection methods or don't use their service.
I was very brief in describing the issue with Google's CAPTCHA. My background is technical and I am an activist so I sometimes overestimate the extent of what others readily know about technology and the harms thereof. I will spell it out here for clarity:
- CAPTCHAs discriminate against people with disabilities. Websites that use CAPTCHAs do not comply with WCAG 2.0 principles
- CAPTCHAs put humans to work for machines when it is machines that should work for humans. And in the case at hand, it misappropriates labor and confuses who is serving who. That is, in a capitalist marketplace it is the supplier who works for the consumer. Belgium tends to flip this and make consumers subservient for the priviledge of consumption. Perhaps Portugal is the same in this regard but international consumers need not accept it. If they want to compete internationally they can treat their clients well or accept the consequences (like bad PR).
- CAPTCHAs are defeated. Spammers find it economical to use third-world sweat shop labor for CAPTCHAs while legitimate users have this burden of broken CAPTCHAs.
- The reCAPTCHA puzzle requires a connection to Google.
- Google’s reCAPTCHAs compromise consumer security as a consequence of surveillance capitalism that entails collection of IP address and browser print. Anonymity is compromised (to Google)
- Users are forced to execute non-free software, which as a consequence denies service to those who run LibreJS (that is, those who either distrust non-free s/w or simply find it unethical)
- The reCAPTCHA requires a GUI, thus denying service to users of text-based clients.
- Google Inc. benefits financially from the puzzle solving work, giving Google an opportunity to collect data, abuse it, and profit from it. E.g. Google can track which of their logged-in users are visiting the page presenting the CAPTCHA.
- The reCAPTCHAs are often broken. This amounts to a denial of service, which looks something like this:
- E.g.1: the CAPTCHA server itself refuses to give the puzzle saying there is too much activity.
- E.g.2:
- The CAPTCHAs are often unsolvable.
- E.g.1: the CAPTCHA puzzle is broken by ambiguity (is one pixel in a grid cell of a pole holding a street sign considered a street sign?)
- E.g.2: the puzzle is expressed in a language the viewer doesn’t understand.
- Network neutrality abuse: there is an access inequality whereby users logged into Google accounts are given more favorable treatment by the CAPTCHA engine (but then they take on more privacy abuse and Google profits more).
- Google bends over backwards to help CBP, and thus furthers the agenda of people infected with xenophobia.
- Google has recently entered the fossil fuel business (by using machine learning to help find drilling points) and was caught financing climate denial with dark money -- something that hits home with many cyclists.
So when you say "google reCaptcha problem is yours to own", this statement could not be more perversely twisted. I am not simply paranoid about Google getting my IP address. That in itself is quite low on my priorities. Data is worth more than oil, and Google profits from both. It is precisely because I boycott Google and the shops that feed Google that I do
not own the problems above -- I'm taking action specifically to avoid responsibility for those problems. If you solve Google's reCAPTCHAs, then
you own those problems.
DragonDrew said:
Also Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn are available to those with a PC as well, not just mobile phones.
You've misunderstood. A mobile ph# must be supplied to register, even if registering from a desktop computer.
I had a Twitter acct predating the ph# requirement, and one day they locked my account and said "give us your mobile ph# to unlock your acct". I had a LinkedIn acct, then MS bought it and started imposing mobile ph# submission on new registrants. Even though my account was grandfathered, I closed it because I was not willing to be the bait by which my old friends are forced to share their ph# with Microsoft in order to reach me. If I were to open a LinkedIn acct today in order to msg Miranda, I would first have to buy a mobile phone subscription and give the number to MS. Even if I were okay with that, there is also a long list of ethical wrongdoing linked to all 3 of those companies. I'll spare you the details but will not support them.
DragonDrew said:
They are a European company, makes sense they have a European contact number.
Of course. And if they operate purely domestically that's all they need. If they want to directly do business globally it would make sense to have more numbers.
