My 2006 census package arrived today. Since, starting this year, it is allowed to fill it in online, I went online to do so. However, the site insisted that my browser is not compatible with the system. I looked up the requirements which said javascript, java 1.4.2, 128 bit SSL. Firefox 1.5 (on linux) has the SSL and javascript. I checked for the java plugin and that was there too. So why didn’t the thing work?
Well, I poked around at the javascript source code to the browser checking scheme. I didn’t bother tracing the execution of the code but I did determine the URL that the system was ultimately directed to if the browser was determined to be compatible. I filled that URL into my address line and lo, the java applet came up and the process got underway. Of course, it was still possible something would break so I finished the process. I now have a confirmation number stating I have comleted the census questions. Obviously their capability detection is bogus.
For those of you who are wondering, I went to the following URL (for the english census): <view source or copy the link location to see it; it’s too long to be reasonable in line>. I am not responsible if using the above link causes trouble with the law, your computer, or anything else.
It really annoys me that a government sponsored organisation like StatsCan manages to lock out a great number of people from an online census form simply because they use a non-dominant operating system.
On another note, I got the short form this year rather than the long one. That’s kind of nice since I seem to always get the long forms of anything when there’s an option involved.
Whoo! Thanks for the link… if only I had found this before I did it in Windows. Maybe then I wouldn’t have had my browser crash TWICE! (and none of the data was saved either time.)
So it’s not just the non-windows crowd that has trouble. Somehow that’s not really comforting. 🙂
It seems that statscan has fixed the census site as noted here.