A Blog From Behind the Trenches

If you visit the map search at 1881.no, you simply get the following message:

Map search can unfortunately not be shown in your browser
We recommend that you use Internet Explorer or Mozilla Firefox when visiting 1881.no

That sites in other countries block Opera is not a surprise, but I am definitely surprised when Norwegian sites do it. Especially when we are talking about an official map service for a large and renown Norwegian company like Telenor. Not only did Opera start out at Telenor, but Opera is not exactly unknown in Norway either.

What makes this thing even more bizarre is that Opera seems to work just fine, but they've gone out of their way to block it. It's using sophisticated techniques to make sure Opera stays out, but if you view the source, you can edit "__supportedBrowsers" to include Opera:

    var __supportedBrowsers = [
        {
            identity : "Firefox",
            version : ">=1.5"
        },
        {
            identity : "Explorer",
            version : ">=6"
        },
        {
            identity : "Opera",
        }
    ];

We have tried to contact them, but nothing has happened so far.

Maybe it's time for me to stop using Telenor services. They've gotten a lot of money from me through the years, but if my money is spent on browser discrimination I don't want to support that.