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Show HN: Stop asking your clients "What browser are you on?"

browser-details.com

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Re: Show HN: Stop asking your clients "What browser are you on?"

#4

Post by ra »

I think it's a GREAT idea.

Now, this might just be me, and I don't want to sound negative, or take anything away from the effort you've obviously put into making this really good, but ...

For $120 / year I think, hmm I could probably build something that does this (just for me) in an hour, and it'd be fun!

However at $10 per YEAR, I would think it's a steal and jump at it. Not suggesting you should drop your pants on price, but that's my view on it.

I think charging for a CNAME is a good strategy.

Re: Show HN: Stop asking your clients "What browser are you on?"

#5

Post by rartichoke »

If I'm on the phone with a client and ask them to look at something I can generally figure out what browser they have (minus the version) by asking 1 or 2 questions and that's often good enough.

Now... if you used this data in a way to automate some typical developer->client BS then I could see paying for it maybe.

For example, let's say you load up a few VMs with every major browser / browser+version combo.

Then you can tell a client to goto some url, maybe it could be something like:

http://browser.somedomain.com?for=somepage.com/preview

If the client goes to that address it captures his browser details just like your site does but then:

1. Replicates his settings with one of the VM browsers.

2. Takes a screenshot of what somepage.com/preview looks like.

3. Sends the screenshot and data to my e-mail or have an API letting me get that data back in on my end.

That has pretty high value because when a client says "the border looks weird!" that means nothing to me. I have to see the problem to be able to fix it and people who aren't technical are horrible at explaining technical problems.

Re: Show HN: Stop asking your clients "What browser are you on?"

#6

Post by dubcanada »

Google Chrome on a Mac reports the following...

PDF: No - wrong Chrome has a built in PDF reader JAVA: No - wrong I do have java OGG-VIDEO: Probably supported - lol? probably H.264-VIDEO: Probably supported - ^ WEBM-VIDEO: Probably supported - ^

And not to be a party pooper but why do I need to signup? Why can't I just click "Get Browser Details" get a unique hyperlink that I could then send to someone.

What if I have mulitple clients? I have no way of saying, okay Joe is using IE8, and Sandra is using IE9.

What if my client is using IE6. Bootstrap doesn't support IE6.

I think thats it for now.

Re: Show HN: Stop asking your clients "What browser are you on?"

#7

Post by jonasvp »

deanclatworthy wrote: post #3

I have found this to be useful: http://supportdetails.com/ What benefit does your service have over this one? Furthermore, if I send mycompany.browser-details.com links to two people, how does your system identify who clicked on the link?

Definitely, support-details.com was the inspiration. However, we didn't want to send our clients to some other site - we needed a branded version.

As for identifying users: you can add multiple recipients in case there are several people in your organisation using it.

We figure that you'll mostly have your client on the phone or are sending an email and expect an answer within minutes - so you know who it was. In the future, we might add a "Subject" line.

Re: Show HN: Stop asking your clients "What browser are you on?"

#8

Post by jonasvp »

rartichoke wrote: post #5

If I'm on the phone with a client and ask them to look at something I can generally figure out what browser they have (minus the version) by asking 1 or 2 questions and that's often good enough. Now... if you used this data in a way to automate some typical developer->client BS then I could see paying for it maybe. For example, let's say you load up a few VMs with every major browser / browser+version combo. Then you…

I've noticed that screenshots (a la https://browsershots.org/) don't really help either as there's no way to debug - you'd change something and need another screenshot to see what happened. I guess we'll have to integrate http://browserstack.com (which is an incredible service).

Re: Show HN: Stop asking your clients "What browser are you on?"

#9

Post by thejosh »

rartichoke wrote: post #5

If I'm on the phone with a client and ask them to look at something I can generally figure out what browser they have (minus the version) by asking 1 or 2 questions and that's often good enough. Now... if you used this data in a way to automate some typical developer->client BS then I could see paying for it maybe. For example, let's say you load up a few VMs with every major browser / browser+version combo. Then you…

If you are doing that much to just see one simple page, might as well try something like browsershots.

Re: Show HN: Stop asking your clients "What browser are you on?"

#10

Post by mootothemax »

You need to add support for custom domains so that I can tell people to visit blah.mydomain.com by setting a CNAME record in DNS.

This is especially important given that your domain name is less than ideal at present for support purposes; I've had enough of reading out hyphenated domains over the phone, and will avoid services that involve doing so.

Looks good though! Do you remember previous visits to the page as well?

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