Hi all,

Do any of you have AOL browser installed please?

I have a customer who says she can't add anything to her cart. When she clicks 'add to cart' nothing happens. She says she is using AOL browser. I would therefore like to test my Avactis shopping cart in AOL browser but I don't have it installed. Obviously I could install it but I have head it is a devil to remove afterwards. So if anyone already has AOL browser installed anyway and could look for me please I would be most grateful. Thanks.

Update

Customer also has Internet Explorer on her computer so I suggested she try that instead of AOL browser. It worked. OK, so I can only conclude that Avactis doesn't work properly in AOL browser?

Is that true? OMG.

Support or AOL users, any ideas please?

I have had the same issue. Over the years there have been a large variety of different versions of their browser. If that isn't bad enough, AOL has sometimes added measures in an attempt to keep their users 'safe'.

In my searches, it appears that the AOL browsers even when all versions are combined, don't have enough useage recorded to break into the top 10 or more browsers in each of the last several years. I haven't allowed AOL on any system that I have to maintain for well over 15 years. It was too difficult to track the deep changes to the OS that it would make.

If AOL still had a dominant position in browser use, it might be a concern. But, today, it is more like a Netscape user having an issue. In fact, some of those AOL browsers are still from the AOL ownership of Netscape! It's time to move on to a more modern browser. I have yet to have an AOL user not also have an IE version installed, nor when they use IE, continue to have problems. The workaround is simple. The actual impact is negligable.

http://www.help-pages.net/HelpDocuments/En...SecSettings.pdf

May help - but never having used AOL could not say that it is a definitive resolution to your clients problem.

Cheers

Hi Don & EBD, many thanks for your replies.

7th Aug - So it has happened again. An AOL user is unable to add anything to their cart. Not good enough. Can Avactis support please reply. I am not convinced that it is a dinosuar and few use it anymore because clearly people DO use AOL browser as I have had 2 (that I know of so who knows how many more) in the space of just one week.

Avactis does not seem to work in AOL browser and I would appreciate a reply please from support.

Or if any of the good folk on this forum have AOL on their computers maybe they would be good enough to check this out.

The reason that AOL no longer shows in any browser usage reports is that in 2003 AOL signed a 3yr licensing deal with Microsoft to use the trident engine (the IE rendering engine). In that light, the pdf that ebd linked would be the best advice if they want to continue using the AOL branded browser. It sets the browser settings to the IE defaults. Or...since AOL users are no longer captive to the branded browser, if they use IE, which is included with Windows, they do not have the disappearing cart contents problem. The rendering isn't a problem, it's a default security setting that is causing the problem. About the best that could be done would be to use one of their user agent strings to indentify the browser and then flash a warning. But, that is about the only solution when it comes to a security setting that is too high for a 'normal' web function. It's comparable to someone not allowing flash in their settings, then complaining when they can't view the flash video.

So I told support about this and they have fixed my cart (for the sum of 30 credits... rather unfair IMO) but they say they won't be fixing it for the rest of you or even letting you know about it. I asked why and was told that no one else had reported it and therefore it cannot be considered a bug... so if it is not a bug they won't be fixing it for the rest of you, not now or later. And yes it can be fixed... as I say, they fixed mine and it was nothing complicated.

I tested some of your carts, the ones I know the web address for, and you all have this issue. Some AOL browser users cannot add your shop items to their cart. They might not tell you... they will probably just give up and shop elsewhere. And as it looks like Avactis don't plan to tell you this either then I felt I should. So there you go... now you know. Next time a customer says they can't add something to their cart or they add it but it vanishes again, ask them what browser they use.... I bet you they will say AOL. Then report it to Avactis cos they won't take just my word for it.

I have had 7 cases of people not being able to add to cart. I have asked them all what browser they use and in all cases... not some or many.... ALL.... they say they use AOL.

Alex and I did some troubleshooting. I was able to have 2 users of the AOL browser visit a special HTTP and a special HTTPS on my site that collected the header string sent by the browser. The results were not at all expected. It looks like the AOL browser is tied to using AOL proxy servers. The IP address for the customer changes during a browser session. It appears to the cart that someone other than the person starting the transaction has intercepted the session ID, because the IP has changed.

The 'fix' would solve the problem for AOL browser users, but at the cost of removing an important security check. I'm not willing to compromise the security of my customer's data.

Without fail, when users of the AOL browser switch to IE, Firefox, or Safari, even while going through AOL, they have no trouble. That is an easy workaround that doesn't compromise the site's security. I have a large number of customers who are grandmothers and computer phobic. Despite that, I've poured over the server logs and find that users of the AOL browser were less than 1% of all visitors a few years ago and have declined to an insignificatnt fraction of that today.

I am well satisfied that any fix is much worse that the problem itself.

Glad you are satisfied. I however am not. When I buy a cart I expect it to work with all browsers. Avactis have admitted to me that they had no idea their cart doesn't work with AOL browser. I have no confidence in this product and am not happy being told I have to chose between security and excluding AOL browser users. Other carts don't have this problem.

There are plenty of AOL browser users out there. If I believe what I am told on here and by Avactis I would think they were as rare as hens teeth and I can assure you they are not.

I am bored of acting as a tester for Avactis. I can't find many people actually using Avactis so maybe that is the problem. The few of us using it have to find all the bugs. So it is not so much that AOL browser users are as rare as hens teeth, more like Avactis shopping carts are.

I guess it depends upon your definition of "plenty". A very small percent of the world market is still a fair number of users. But, there is a huge difference between such a tiny share that it is ignored by most to "rare as hens teeth".

There are many places that keep statistics on browser use, but here are a couple that are consistently referred to.
http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_stats.asp has stats going back to 2002, which happens to be the last year that AOL made their own browser. After that, they bought Netscape. You can see that by 2007, Netscape's share had dropped to 0.2%, and in 2008 it had slipped below 1/10 of 1 percent and was no longer tracked.

Another http://marketshare.hitslink.com/browser-ma...amp;qpcustomd=0 shows Netscapes usage worldwide at 0.14%.
If you look at AOL as an ISP, regardless of what browser is used, http://marketshare.hitslink.com/report.aspx?qprid=18 shows a world share of 0.37%.

I'm sorry, but anyway you want to look at it, AOL represents less than 1/2 of 1% of the internet users.

Armed with what we learned about AOL's browser using a different IP address for HTTPS than it uses for regular HTTP, I simply changed to serve the entire storefront by HTTPS. I recruited a couple of customers to try using their AOL browser to see if it worked. It did.

Many ecommerce sites have switched to serving their entire storefront with HTTPS in the past year or so. Having the browser indicate that it is a secure site from the first page visited is seen as a positive for the store. The downside, of course, is that it takes more resources to encrypt a page before sending it, so your server has to be up to it. Either way, Avactis gives you the flexibility to serve some or all pages by https.