Web Conferencing with FireFox

I have just signed up for a web conference about the Lifetime Support Policy for 9i Database Release 9.2. Naturally enough Oracle host their own web conferences using Oracle Collaboration Suite. The registration process includes an option to test the configuration of your desktop, to ascertain whether it is compatible with Collab Suite.

Inevitably the test software doesn't work with Firefox. In fact it fails so badly that I couldn't resize the pop-up window to read the failure message. This is the second time this week I have had this problem with web conference software. Earlier this week the culprit host was Interwise. Thank goodness for the Firefox IE add-on. In both cases all I needed to do was add the conference site to IE tab's list of sites.

Firefox now has 20% of the UK browser market and 30% in Europe, and 17% worldwide. Judging by my immediate circle, the take-up is much higher amongst IT professionals. These are precisely the sort of people most likely to sign up for web conferences. Isn't it about time web conferencing started to catch up?

There is a final irony. The Oracle site does have a Quick Tutorial, which specifies Browser—Internet Explorer 5.5 or higher Java—Enabled in the system requirements. Unfortunately the Quick Tutorial (and the Help text) only work in IE. Even the Firefox IE tab renders them as blank pages.